Podcasts about Bancroft Library

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Tonight on APEX Express, Host Miko Lee is going Beneath the Surface — with two incredible artists, Margaret Cho and Masaki Fujihata. Both artists have been working in their fields for decades. Margaret Cho — stand-up comedy, sitcom, filmmaking, writing. Masaki Fujihata — a pioneer in new media art.And here's what they have in common: they've both shifted with the times… but never lost their own voice. Their vision has stayed singular, even as the world around them changed. Listen in to APEX Express   Check out: BeHere / 1942: A New Lens on the Japanese American Incarceration at the Oakland Museum from Friday, September 18, 2026—Sunday, December 27, 2026 Masaki Fujihata website Choligarchy at Berkeley Rep, September 15-19th, 2026  Margaret Cho website Interweaving: Indo-Persian Exchanges Interweaving: Indo-Persian Exchanges at Oakland Asian Cultural Center, September 11, 2026 7pm Artists featured: arjun-verma.com www.pezhham.com  MazdakAlipour.com emanhashimi.com   Show Transcripts [00:00:00] Opening: Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It's time to get on board the Apex Express.   [00:00:34] Miko Lee: Tonight on Apex Express, I'm going beneath the surface with two incredible artists, Margaret Cho and Masaki Fujihata. I'm your host, Miko Lee.   [00:00:57] These are two artists who've been working in their fields for decades. Margaret Cho, stand-up comedy, sitcom, filmmaking, writing, and Masaki Fujihata, a pioneer in new media art. And here's what they have in common. They've both shifted with the times, but they never lost their own voice. Their vision has stayed singular, even as the world around them have changed. So stick with me. First up, my conversation with Margaret Cho   [00:01:29] Welcome Margaret Cho to Apex Express.    [00:01:32] Margaret Cho: Thank you.    [00:01:34] Miko Lee: I wanna start with my question I ask most of my guests, which is who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?    [00:01:41] Margaret Cho: I think my people are Asian American, my people are queer, my people are all ages, my people are progressive, my people have hope for the future. That's what I'm hoping. I think that's it, and that's who I am too.    [00:01:56] Miko Lee: Thank you. You started stand-up so young in this very Bay Area, and I think you started at age 14. I'm wondering what's your earliest childhood memory of being a performer?    [00:02:08] Margaret Cho: My earliest childhood memory of being a performer was I was actually a singer. I was a singer in a band of children, and I was probably maybe five years old. We were on a show on KTVU. I believe it was called Asia Now, and it was filming in the studio and I wouldn't stop waving at my mother, who was just off camera. And after the performance the band leaders asked me not to come back. Aw. I remember that because I could not stop waving at my mother and so I kept breaking that fourth wall. That was my first memories of performance.   [00:02:47] Miko Lee: And what did that feel like to you?    [00:02:50] Margaret Cho: I didn't really get the idea. I didn't really understand television exactly quite. I didn't understand why we were performing. I didn't understand why I couldn't say hi to my mother while I was performing. I didn't have a real comprehension of like even like rejection of what that meant or even performance or what that meant or television. So all these things that I come to learn about very well, rejection, performance, and television is my whole life. But back then I didn't understand the importance of all those things.    [00:03:22] Miko Lee: But there must've been some kind of zhuzh for you that you said, “Ooh, I wanna keep doing this,” right?    [00:03:28] Margaret Cho: Yeah, I think so. Much later though, you know, I did perform as a pianist. I was a classical pianist. I was also a ballet dancer. So those things required performance, which actually would make me really, really nervous, I think because in piano you're playing a classical piece. You're playing Beethoven, you're playing Mozart. So if you make a mistake, everybody's gonna know. Also with ballet you're choreographed and you're in as a troupe. If you're doing choreography with a bunch of other people- If you make a mistake, everybody's gonna know. But with comedy, mistakes are a little bit more of, something you can gloss over a bit. There's a little more control there, a little more room for chaos, which I absolutely need, I think, as a performer.   [00:04:22] Miko Lee: Mm, this is interesting. You've already described some of the different types of performance that you do, and you've also done so many things in your life. But I'm wondering if there is a type of art form that still makes you nervous.    [00:04:34] Margaret Cho: Music. I think playing an instrument in front of people, I think because when I was a child and would perform these recitals, I would be so nervous. There were a couple of times in recitals where I had to start over, you know? When you're, like, eight or nine years old and you make a mistake and have to start over, and this audience is, like, hundreds of people, it's, like, really mortifying. I still carry that. I play m- numerous instruments, and I really dread playing them in public. What helped me a little bit is busking, which I did quite a lot of over, over the years because when you're playing out on the street, there's a… I don't know. It's like people are not really paying attention to you, and therefore you're kind of in this divide of I'm in performance, but I'm also kind of not. So that helped. In general, I refrain nowadays from when I do music, I don't usually play my instrument along with the band. I usually just focus on singing. Even that is quite nerve-wracking. Singing and doing music still, even though I've been doing it really my whole life, there is something about it that, that quite, um… because when you're singing, you're actually also the instrument. So there's a bit of more required. That's why I always prefer comedy. Your quality of voice doesn't matter because the music you're making doesn't have to sound pleasing.    [00:05:59] Miko Lee: And when you were busking, what instrument were you playing?   [00:06:02] Margaret Cho: Guitar. Ah. So I would play guitar, sometimes a six-string banjo, sometime, I'd play all manner of sort of guitar-necked instruments, which can go from, guitar to mandolin to a cello that's, it has a guitar neck, so I can play- Ah that as well. So all those things, I cheat at everything 'cause I have a guitar neck.    [00:06:21] Miko Lee: I love that. The improv just comes out of you in all different ways, I guess.    [00:06:27] Margaret Cho: Yeah.   [00:06:27] Miko Lee: So you have been a path maker, rule breaker in so many aspects of your life, from comedy obviously, and producing and starring in the first Asian American TV show, actor, fashion maven, author, rapper, podcast host, and out and proud queer role model. I'm wondering, what's a career dream that you aspire to?    [00:06:46] Margaret Cho: Ooh, well, I wanna be an old lady crime show, like Murder She Wrote. I wanna just solve crimes. I love, like, a British crime show, like an old lady solving crime. Like a Prime Suspect, like a Helen Mirren. I love that kind of genre of television, and so I would love to mature in that 'cause, like, it's so interesting and also so rich and, I feel really drawn to it. So that's something that I haven't… I'm a participant in a lot of those types of shows. I'm on a show called Bull Trent, which is very much that, which is really cool. And then I've been on Law & Order, which is the ultimate, SVU is the ultimate sort of crime show. So I would love to engage in that genre more.   [00:07:31] Miko Lee: Ooh, are you developing that on your own?    [00:07:34] Margaret Cho: I'm not, but I am participating in lots of other people's versions of it. They're not out yet, so they will be coming, forthcoming.    [00:07:44] Miko Lee: Coming soon, and then your own version starring you. Yes. The- Yeah … modern Murder She Wrote. I would love it. In what town would this be? In San Francisco or in-    [00:07:53] Margaret Cho: Oh, San Francisco would be great. Yeah. San Francisco or, like, Marin.    [00:07:56] Miko Lee: Oh, God. That would be really funny.    [00:07:58] Margaret Cho: Sausalito. Sausalito would be so fun. You know, Napa Valley. You know, something, like, very, like, th- this community that looks very, like Saint Helena, like Calistoga, s- community that's very quaint and peaceful and, like, kind of like foodie oriented and, like, very, you, you know, you think very upscale, but actually there's a lot of dirty dealings going on underneath the surface.   [00:08:20] Miko Lee: The wine country Murder She Wrote.    [00:08:23] Margaret Cho: Yes, I love it.    [00:08:24] Miko Lee: I would watch that. That's fun. So you also have expressed your art in so many ways. Your body is filled with so many tattoos. I think you have over 70. Which of your tattoos evokes the strongest emotion for you?    [00:08:38] Margaret Cho: Well, right now I'm in this, like, trend only getting art from Korean artists, and these are guys. People from Korea who are tattooing now are really the best in the world. They are the state of the art. Like, their eye and their talent is just so innovative. There it's semi-illegal, so they do it under duress, you know, and they have to sort of do all these different things to do it. But their ability to just visualize things that are just, that seemed impossible, you know, these miracles on skin that they can do. The art now I'm really resonating with. There's an artist now that works exclusively in Dancheong, which is a kind of the color scheme of Korean temple art. And so all of his tattooing reflects that. And so I'm working on a very, very large piece on my leg that is, all Dancheong, which you know, for me, like having had lots of different kinds of tattoo, like I had sort of Japanese traditional and a lot of American traditional, and a lot of just kind of different kinds of art. Now to just really delve into the art of my ancestors is quite powerful, and by being done by very young, very skilled tattoo artists from Korea. You know, so I get to speak in Korean to them. We communicate in a language that is shared, that's ours, which is very different from the way that I've communicated with all of the other artists that I've had over my time as a tattooed person. So, um, yeah, tattooing for me, it's, it's all about Korea right now.    [00:10:21] Miko Lee: And what inspired your first tattoo?    [00:10:25] Margaret Cho: My first tattoo was done by Don Ed Hardy, who is a legendary Bay Area tattooer, also, an amazing guy and he was a friend of the employees of my father, who, my father owned Paperback Traffic, which is his gay bookstore just going in the 1970s. And so a lot of people were getting tattooed by Don Ed Hardy. They were getting full body suits in the '70s and '80s, and the, the, um, images, like, so on our refrigerator as a… When I was a child, my father would put up, um, the full body tattoos of these guys that worked for him. So that's what I would see every day. Instead of, like, our graded papers or, like, stuff that you usually have on a refrigerator, it was photographs of completely tattooed people. Um, and that really stayed with me. And so when I was ready to be tattooed, and this is, like, 2002, um, my father's employees and all of our, like, old friends took me down to see Don Ed Hardy, who was doing these body suits, and, he gave me my very, very first very large Japanese-inspired piece on my stomach and back. And that kind of started it off. I got the most painful, most difficult place in your body tattooed first, which is, like, basically your stomach, and your sternum, your chest. All those areas are really, like, those are the worst, and I got that over with. And so I realized, oh, I could actually keep on doing this. And I always knew that I would be heavily tattooed because of that.   [00:11:59] Miko Lee: So your first one you chose really big, not just like a small something. You got a really big one.    [00:12:03] Margaret Cho: Yeah.    [00:12:04] Miko Lee: Wow. Yeah. Just jump in, girl. Just jump in.    [00:12:07] Margaret Cho: Well, I just knew that was right, and I knew also this was probably, like, the only time that I would be able to get a very large piece from Don Ed Hardy, you know? Yeah. People know him, of course, from the clothing line- That's right … and the sort of Y2K influence. But he is so much more than that. His influence on tattooing is really significant. That was towards the end of his tattooing career. He didn't have many years where he kept doing it after, 'cause he explained to me that he absorbs the pain of people. Wow. And so he realized, like, that probably wasn't so good for him physically as he aged, I was really lucky to get what I got from him, which is a very, very large piece and a very important piece.   [00:12:51] Miko Lee: Amazing. And as you're talking about your childhood and growing up in the bookstore, it just makes me reflect on how your childhood was so unique and so interesting. Mm-hmm. And I'm wondering if today you were to make a television show about your childhood, how very different… With, with more artistic freedom. It would be so fun. It would be so fascinating. There's so many more streaming options than just the three networks that we grew up with. Yeah. So, what would that be like for you to do a TV show on your childhood now?    [00:13:23] Margaret Cho: I would love it. I mean, I would love to create that world, recreate that world, because, you know, we had the influence of, like, people who were doing a lot of very early body modification, meaning these full, full body tattoos, and, like, body piercing, which was such a different thing. I mean, in the 1970s we had the rise of Harvey Milk you know, and his assassination.    [00:13:44] Miko Lee: Mm-hmm.    [00:13:44] Margaret Cho: We also had the devastation of the People's Temple, which was all San Francisco people.    [00:13:50] Miko Lee: Yep, yep.    [00:13:51] Margaret Cho: It happened in Guyana, people don't realize this originated in San Francisco and came from there. All the people who died were San Franciscans, and Oakland, Bay Area people. This is our people. My parents actually rented the recently vacated People's Temple for my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary. Wow. Like, crossing the police tape. To go in and have a Korean party, and then my mother's, “Lot of ghosts.” She saw all the ghosts.   [00:14:19] Miko Lee: Yeah, I'm sure.   [00:14:21] Margaret Cho: “Ghosts, ghosts, lot of ghosts. Well, ghosts don't really do anything. They just make food get cold very fast.” You know, like that kind of a thing. So it would be a great TV show, I think.    [00:14:32] Miko Lee: Ugh, I would watch that too. We're talking about your new show, Choligarchy, which is gonna be at Berkeley Rep, and I read that you said it brings you back to your roots as a political comedian. Can you share more about this?    [00:14:44] Margaret Cho: Well, I had the luxury of the Obama administration where I didn't feel like I had to fight so hard to be heard and seen as a queer Asian American woman, 'cause I worked on the Obama campaign, I worked on, getting people registered to vote in 2008 in Philadelphia. I worked on all these different things with Cal Penn in 2008 to assure a kind of future where we are gonna have something different, and then we did. And then so I got to spend about eight years where I could do dance, I could do music, I could kinda like drift into these other arenas of work that I hadn't been able to do because, before, had been, like, so much about fighting the Bush administration, so much about fighting what was going on. So now to be able to return to a thing that I'm very used to, like political commentary, where I'm really focused on using my voice to affect change and to create change, and it's really profound, you know? I love doing this show. It's got me thousands and thousands of death threats, which is also really terrifying and bizarre. I've always had a kind of very confrontational relationship with conservatives, but now it's escalated to the point of, like, oh, I actually do fear for my safety. But I think that it's worth it. The message is worth it, and I'm proud to do this show, and I'm very, very excited to bring it to very progressive Berkeley, which they're gonna hear it better than anyone. I do think Berkeley is even more progressive than San Francisco. So it's exciting.    [00:16:27] Miko Lee: Well, San Francisco is filled with tech bros now, so it's a very- Yeah … different vibe than when we were-   [00:16:32] Margaret Cho: That's right.   [00:16:32] Miko Lee: growing up. I'm wondering, I heard you say about how different it was during the Bush regime, which is actually relatively tame in retrospect compared to the fascistic times we're living in now. I'm wondering how different, now that you're going back to the kind of political roots, how different is it from that Bush time in your approach to your comedy?    [00:16:51] Margaret Cho: Well, Bush never descended into a cult. Bush never had the sort of magnetism as a person, to demand the cult-like sort of atmosphere that sort of exists now, where we have a leader who will gladly let all of his followers be on a decoy plane while he rushes away in a catering van. We think the decoy plane, that's really America. Like, the decoy– we are all, as a nation, on the decoy plane. He's happily content to let us all die to ensure his safety. It's like they're, and they're still gonna follow him after that. So that's a cult, you know? This is a different beast than we're dealing with just sort of patriotism or the idea of like xenophobia or the idea of wanting this kind of America that Bush wanted. Bush couldn't create that because he was not a cult leader, whereas now we have a bona fide cult and cult leader on a path to destruction.    [00:17:57] Miko Lee: So given this time that we're living in and how complicated it is, I'm wondering, especially as you're going on tour with this show, what brings you comfort and makes you feel connected to home when you're on tour or when you're away?   [00:18:10] Margaret Cho: Well, my dog is with me all the time, so that's really special. She'll be there at Berkeley. She's really, really amazing. I'm a big fan of social media. It's connecting with people on there, and people are encouraging me through there. There's a lot of points where I carry home with me. I'm also, at home on the road, because I've been traveling and performing for over 40 years, so it's a place that I feel a great deal of comfort in.    [00:18:35] Miko Lee: Because you mentioned social media, I'm just wondering, isn't that where the death threats are coming from, though, is social media? Or are you getting them in—   [00:18:42] Margaret Cho: Yes. But I'm also get, I get them on my phone. I get them, like they—   [00:18:45] Miko Lee: Oh, you, they- Yeah … find your cellphone and contact you—   [00:18:47] Margaret Cho: Yeah.   [00:18:48] Miko Lee: directly? Wow.    [00:18:49] Margaret Cho: Yeah, I get them, like, you know… I'm also concerned about, I've been doxxed, you know, they threatened to kill my dog, and I'm like, “She's white. She's one of you. Why would you kill her?” It's kind of funny.   [00:19:01] Miko Lee: But you don't respond to any of these folks, right?    [00:19:04] Margaret Cho: No, you can't, because you just don't know what… I always think about, like, Melissa Hortman. They killed her dog. I don't wanna be another example of, like, MAGA lunacy. When you speak out and you are a symbol of what they don't want. They don't want women, they don't want people of color talking. When you are that you're really in the line of fire. That's why traveling works for me, I get to be very, very stealth and hidden. Um, and that's kinda also why I travel so much, is to be stealth. Mm. I get so much encouragement from social media. I don't wanna cut myself off from it. But yeah, you have to be careful.    [00:19:42] Miko Lee: So you feel like that balance outweighs it?    [00:19:45] Margaret Cho: Yeah, for sure.   [00:19:45] Miko Lee: And I'm wondering if you think there's something that's misunderstood about you?    [00:19:49] Margaret Cho: When I'm talking and people don't like what I'm saying, they will say, “Oh, look at this has-been talking again.” And I'm like, “I'm not talking because I think I'm a celebrity. I'm talking because I am alive, and everybody who is alive has the right to speak.” I think this is really important. I don't talk because I feel like I have a responsibility to talk because I represent anything. No, I talk because we should all be talking. We should all have a voice. I don't have a sense of importance about myself or who I am or what I do. I think that everybody should be talking, and now we should all be talking because now we are all on that decoy plane, and he will leave us to die. So I'm going to say something about it. People have a myth about celebrity that somehow it involves our ego, and that's why we feel compelled to have a voice. But I think we should all have a voice no matter who we are.    [00:20:41] Miko Lee: I've heard you call yourself the patron saint of outsiders. Can you talk about what that means to you?    [00:20:47] Margaret Cho: I think for me it means to be able to have, my queerness front loaded, my Asianness front loaded, my gender front loaded, all these things that I want to be able to talk to those who feel like they don't feel represented by mainstream culture, by white supremacy. If you have felt rejected or even just not included by society at large, I wanna hear your voice. I wanna hear your opinion, and I wanna know you.    [00:21:15] Miko Lee: And last question, why should folks go and see Oligarchy at Berkeley Rep?    [00:21:20] Margaret Cho: Oh, it's Choligarchy.   [00:21:20] Miko Lee: Choligarchy.   [00:21:22] Margaret Cho: It's my nation. It's my dictatorship. In my dictatorship, we have universal healthcare. In my dictatorship, we have a universal living wage. If we actually made the billionaires pay their share, if we actually stopped supporting Israel and Argentina, other countries which I don't know why we give them so much money, but we do, if we stop doing that, we stop supporting the billionaires, if we stop giving corporations handouts, we could actually have a universal living wage where everybody in this nation would just be able to just live. We could just live because we are American. We could just live. And then your work could be what you really wanna do. That would be such an important change to the way that we exist as Americans. And we could do that if we actually stopped giving b- bailouts to corporations, actually made billionaires pay their share, and stopped giving money to countries that are not ours. That's what my platform is. That's what I run on, and that's what I plan to do.    [00:22:35] Miko Lee: And folk can find out more by going to see the show at Berkeley Rep, and we'll put a link in our show notes. Thank you so much, Margaret Cho, for joining us on Apex Express.    [00:22:45] Margaret Cho: Thank you.    [00:22:46] Miko Lee: Next up, get a preview of an upcoming unique performance at Oakland Asian Culture Center. Listen to Sawaal Jawaab    MUSIC   [00:24:01] Miko Lee: That was Sawal Jawab with Arjun Verma, Eman Hashimi, and Pezhham Akhavass in Interweaving: Indo-Persian Exchanges, a one-night-only performance on Friday, September 11th at the Oakland Asian Culture Center. The concert's a rare opportunity for Bay Area audiences to experience the interplay of some of Asia's richest classical music traditions from India, Iran, and Afghanistan. Next up, we hear from two voices, multimedia artist Masaki Fujihata and Carin Adams, senior curator at the Oakland Museum. Masaki Fujihata is a world-renowned sound, installation, interactive, and new media artist. He's also a professor at Keio University. His work has been shown all around the world, and now it's coming to the Oakland Museum, opening September 18th and running through the end of December. The piece is called BeHere / 1942, A New Lens on the Japanese American Incarceration, and it's a new augmented reality work. So tune in to my interview with Masaki and Carin Welcome to Apex Express, multimedia artist Masaki Fujihata and Carin Adams, senior curator at Oakland Museum.    [00:25:13] I'm so happy to have you both with me, and we're talking about the new exhibit BeHere / 1942: A New Lens on the Japanese American Incarceration, which opens at the Oakland Museum from Friday, September 18th to Sunday, December 27th. So thank you so much for joining me. I wanna start with a question I ask all of my guests. I'm gonna start first with you, Carin, and then I'll go to Masaki, and the question is, who are your people, and what legacy do you carry with you?    [00:25:53] Carin Adams: Oh, wow. I think there are lots of different facets of my family and who I think of as my people. Um, I think in, in this work in particular, I'm really, um, thinking a lot about my grandparents, my, my mother's parents, and, um, my mom, who's turning 91 in, um, October, and, um, her and her siblings' experience, um, being incarcerated in Tule Lake. So- Mm … that, I think has, has a lot to do with wh- why I'm here, and thank you so much for having me.    [00:26:36] Miko Lee: Mm-hmm. Thank you so much. And Masaki, what about you? Who are your people, and what legacy do you carry with you?    [00:26:43] Masaki Fujihata: Yeah, in my case, my, career started with the computer graphics long time ago in the '80s, so I came in, uh, Bay Area and, uh, West Coast quite frequently to join a big, uh, conference and so on. But then in '90s, I was very many times to be invited to be in Europe, so-called media art, i- is so dominant. So my curiosity is about the visual arts plus computer technology. Then nearly 10 years ago, I started to play with augmented reality. I recognized AR is a very good technology to put the history in actual moment. So the title Be Here 1942 means, I try to call the people in the past in the present. After one of my friend, the professor at UCLA invite me to be in Los Angeles, then we started to focus onto the Japanese Americans' history. That was the first, a kind of coincidence, but it was, very interesting to me because, I was born in Tokyo and grew up here in Tokyo, so usually I didn't think about who is a Japanese. [00:28:10] Along with this production, I studied a lot, not only the racial problems, but also the identity, , not only the personal identity, but also identity of Japanese and also American. It's really difficult to understand what's is the identity in the America because so many different people are living together and of course there are several conflicts. This is very good study for me, through the new media technology and, through the meeting with the people. Some of them really had, severe experience inside the camp. I never had a chance to think about these opportunities. Then I really want to recreate what had happened in the 1942. That was my point of view for this project.    [00:29:08] Miko Lee: I'm wondering when you were growing up in Japan, did you learn about the Japanese American incarceration?    [00:29:15] Masaki Fujihata: Maybe, maybe, but a tiny. Most of the young students just thought, oh, this is the history, not mine    [00:29:27] Miko Lee: And did you… Were there kibei that were there? Cause I know there were a lot of Japanese Americans that had been pushed out and repatriated to Japan. Did you grow up knowing any of those people?    [00:29:39] Masaki Fujihata: Mm, not, not really. Not really. Um, how can I say? Mm, maybe this is the education, the Japanese education. They didn't talk much about the history. The first part is an ancient moment, is very, very, you know, impressive. But, at the end of the term, so the modern age usually passing very, very fast.    [00:30:10] Miko Lee: Oh, interesting.    [00:30:11] Masaki Fujihata: Yeah, so n- not only about, history between America and Japan, but also China and Japan.   [00:30:18] Miko Lee: Mm-hmm.    [00:30:19] Masaki Fujihata: We have very few knowledge in, on the context of, uh, history education. I mean—   [00:30:24] Miko Lee: So sort of World War II- I mean- and forward? From World War II—   [00:30:27] Masaki Fujihata: Yeah, yeah …   [00:30:28] Miko Lee: You didn't really learn about it?   [00:30:28] Masaki Fujihata: Yeah, modern age. Modern age. I believe this is very big problem in the education.    [00:30:35] Miko Lee: That's so interesting. So the first that you really learned about the Japanese American incarceration was during, when you started this project at UCLA? Is that right?    [00:30:44] Masaki Fujihata: Yeah, yeah. I know something about the history in the US, but when I started to do research, there are many details, and every people's history is very, very different. So the textbook of the history is just the surface- So that's why I wanted to show more the detail through a new media technology.    [00:31:16] Miko Lee: I read a quote from you that said, “My aim was to peer deeply into photographs to derive from them more than was visible on the surface.” Can you talk a little bit more about what that means to you?   [00:31:29] Masaki Fujihata: Yes, because, I started to think about to focus on the moment when they ride the bus. So then, of course, I did some research to read some oral history, but, most of them didn't tell about the moment because I think this was just one hour or two hours for waiting. I suppose they usually don't want to remember, and also they thought that this is not important day, then they forgot.   [00:32:04] Miko Lee: What was it about the bus that you were curious about?    [00:32:08] Masaki Fujihata: We planned to realize our project, to think about the beginning. What is the beginning? There, there are quite many novels and writings about the life in the camp because of, of course, this is so heavy. Four years in the camp is unbelievable. According to my research, some people said they thought the war will ends in three months. But in there they spend in the camp, over four years. So of course, this is a heavy story and also while in the inside the camp. There are some conflict between the first generation, second generation or American side or Japanese side. The beginning is, of course, the Pearl Harbor raid, but, the bus, suddenly one day the bus came into your town and you were asked to ride the bus, and before riding they didn't tell them where they are going. So so if it happened now, how can we behave? So this is my question. This is the beginning, and they didn't know what will happen in the future. And then in parallel, I did some research to see the photographs because, there are many documentary photographs were in the archive, in National Archive, and also Library Congress. I tried to, see the photography, but as I said, when see the picture, you know, the detail is telling a different story, against the comment. The comment is just they are lining up for riding a bus or something, or Japanese American families get together and waiting. Of course they have some name card. At last I found through one of small girl's eye, there is a reflection of the photographer. But, not only the photographer, there are two, three, or four more people standing with the cameraman. Then, of course I understand they are all Caucasians. They are not Japanese American people. So for the little lady, for the little girl, when she was surrounded by, white officer, perhaps military police, she has nothing to do. But on the surface of the photography, she's smiling. So this contrast is the beginning. So this is a problem about media, visual media. So then I really want to share this experience with the other audiences through the exhibition. That was my intention.   [00:35:18] Miko Lee: And had you seen the photographs from Dorothea Lange and Russell Lee prior to working on this project?   [00:35:25] Masaki Fujihata: Of course, I know these names because they are very famous,, documentary photographer, the magazine Life started to publish from the year 1933, it was hit, so popular. I was really surprised because they did the job to make a document for Japanese Americans, and there is over 4,000 pictures left in the archive. I saw all of these so many times, so I can tell each picture. I can tell what is the difference, between the Dorothea and Russell Lee. So each photographer has, different characteristics. But I really surprised because, Dorothea Lange's photography is very different from others. And—   [00:36:18] Miko Lee: And the government didn't like them. They locked them away for years because they were too real.    [00:36:25] Masaki Fujihata: Yeah, and because, Dorothea's photography is always associated with the object inside the photography. She tried to understand who is she, who, who is—-    [00:36:38] Miko Lee: Mm-hmm …    [00:36:39] Masaki Fujihata: and try to have a good relationship with the object. Most of the photographer, like a press cameraman, it's just go there, “Hey, smile,” and shot is their, you know, way of business. But Dorothea's way is very different, so sometimes, I can tell she is always calculating the distance from her to the object. I enjoyed very much to have a chance to see all of these details. Of course, another luckiness because all of these photograph were shot by the government, then all of these are now public domain. Even me from Tokyo, I can see so many photographs with high resolution. I think those are made after year 2000 because of the technology came in. Then now they are supplying 3,000 by 4,000 pixels. That's why I could enlarge and to see the reflection on the girl's eye. It's a coincidence, but also it's the evolution of computer technology from analog photography. So this is also interesting part to share with the audience.   [00:38:01] Miko Lee: Thank you. Carin, I wonder if you could talk about what an audience will see when they come in to see the exhibit.    [00:38:08] Carin Adams: The exhibition is going to happen inside and outside the gallery. So if people are visiting the museum coming up through our entrance on Oak Street, they will have an opportunity to enter the augmented reality application that Masaki has designed where they're, standing there grounded in, the architecture of the Oakland Museum. But they're also seeing people, dressed as if they were in 1942, waiting with their belongings and their family members. They'll be able to see the buses that lined up on Oak Street in '42. There was a civil control station that was across the street, and Dorothea Lange took some very famous photographs of people waiting with their belongings in front of their houses that, on the museum side of the street. Masaki has adapted the augmented reality that he first developed for Los Angeles for Oakland. So people on entrance onto our campus will have that experience, and then if they come into the gallery, then they'll really be entering into the gaze of these eyes. They'll be surrounded by very high resolution images that Masaki has blown up, to mural size. You're forced to encounter the people that were reflected in the eyes of the subjects that Lange photographed.    [00:39:45] Miko Lee: Thank you, and I know that in the collection, you've had these Dorothea photos for a long time, right, in the Oakland Museum's—   [00:39:53] Carin Adams: Yeah. The Oakland Museum is the holder of the Dorothea Lange archive, including some of her images of the incarceration. The Bancroft Library also has extensive holdings of her work and material , related to this history. And of course, Masaki did lots of research in the National Archive and Library of Congress.   [00:40:16] Miko Lee: Masaki, I know this is the second version of the show since you have opened it first at JAMM and at UC, with UCLA. Yeah. What was it like for you to recreate it for the Oakland Museum? How has that experience been?   [00:40:30] Masaki Fujihata: I'm very, very lucky to find OMCA. Mm-hmm. We started to think about the production in OMCA. I made a research through, of course Dorothy Lang's photography. Then there is a number of the street, 1117 Oak Street is the place where people apply their address and family name. The Civil Control Station is that address. I was very surprised because this is a street in front of the museum, and actually the other side of the street was the Civil Control Station where the bus came in. So this is exact place I really wanted to put my augmented reality models. So I was very shocked because I never think about the museum is a real place.   [00:41:24] Miko Lee: So it's truly a place-based piece of art because that is the history coming alive in that very spot.    [00:41:31] Masaki Fujihata: Yes. Yeah. So, all the projects start from the realization of augmented reality.    [00:41:39] Miko Lee: Mm-hmm.    [00:41:40] Masaki Fujihata: So augmented reality is a kind of tech term, but augmentation is adding some information rather than the first wa- surface or rather than the display. In this case, we are putting the happenings in the 1942 in present, and then try to make a contrast between now and the past. The exhibition inside the gallery is showing a kind of process of the research to make this augmented reality piece because for making the 3D model data, we invite many volunteers into a special studio. I have to direct them. I have to prepare some scenario for them. In some cases, you are the university students. Coincidentally, you met the professor, while waiting for the bus. This is a fiction I made. When I need to make a scenario, I really need a research what is possible, what is not possible. So then the photography help me a lot to make a small scenario.    [00:43:01] Miko Lee: How many volunteers worked with you on this?    [00:43:04] Masaki Fujihata: I think totally 64 volunteers.    [00:43:08] Miko Lee: Wow. That is amazing.    [00:43:10] Masaki Fujihata: Each one was asked to walking towards the point where the bus would come, and then the second part is waiting, and then the third part is just lining up for the bus. So there is three different scenario. Then each person appears three times. Then totally you will see nearly 200 people.    [00:43:37] Miko Lee: Wow. And I understand that you use, in order to utilize the AR, you use cameras that kind of replicate those used during the incarceration, and I'm wondering what made you decide to choose that?   [00:43:53] Masaki Fujihata: So I try to know the core idea of each technology, because the technology is usually used for capitalism. My manifest is liberate technology from capitalism. So technology has another dimension, not only for serving for the capitalism to make money for your life more rational, but the technology also can give you a chance, who are you? What is life? What is the world? So I really want to use the technology another dimension of the technology usually used by the companies, and capitalism. In this case, this project is really good because very nice photography was left in the archive. But imagine in the 1942, photography was a high technology. Very few technicians or rich people could have the camera. Now so popular everybody has a camera inside their mobile phone, but it was high tech. And now augmented reality is somehow popular technology, but no one didn't use the AR technology to think about what we are doing as an art. So I wanted to use augmented reality to, to think about what is our life    [00:45:32] Miko Lee: Ooh, that is so interesting. I really appreciate that. And I'm wondering because you've seen audiences go through the first exhibit, I'm wondering if anything surprised you by audiences that have seen it and what, what you'd like people to walk away with after going to your installation.    [00:45:51] Masaki Fujihata: I was really surprised because this was my first case the audience had a tear. So after they saw the augmented reality, some of the person said, “Masaki,” I suppose, she suppose that, “Perhaps my grandfather was here.” Could feel the same impression or imagine, she could imagine what had happened on her grandfather So it's a bit like a cinema, but there is no written story, so each person can explore the images through a tablet. But, uh, maybe five minutes later, uh, the user will feel inside the scene. So In another words, I can say you are going to feel you are inside a cinema studio. You will be captured by the camera. And also another, okay, another interesting aspect because, I could develop this project because the photographs were left made by Dorothy and other people, uh, professional documentary photographer made these photography. So photography was left. And then, um, while you are using iPad in the entrance plaza of, Oakland Museum, you will see many Japanese people wearing the costume and, waiting for the bus. But now you are the cameraman. You believe you are seeing what had happened through the display, but, imagine for them inside the image were looked by you. So this is the viewer you are going to see, but also from them, from the object, you are the cameraman.   [00:48:04] Miko Lee: So you want people to feel both sides, both being the watcher but also in it—   [00:48:09] Masaki Fujihata: Yeah.   [00:48:10] Miko Lee: Immersed in the experience.    [00:48:11] Masaki Fujihata: Yeah, hunter.    [00:48:13] Miko Lee: Mm.    [00:48:13] Masaki Fujihata: Image hunter, yeah.    [00:48:15] Miko Lee: Image hunter, mm. I, I feel like you're saying utilizing technology as a tool for your emotions as opposed to a capitalistic gain. I'm wondering if you're working with AI at all, and your thoughts about it. Because you've really been on the forefront of so much multimedia since the '80s and I'm just wondering now people are just talking about AI and the impact of artists  and I wonder what your thoughts are about that.   [00:48:39] Masaki Fujihata: I, I think, uh, it's too early to, uh, work with AI as an artist because, uh, e- even the developer of, uh, AI didn't know what happened inside, so it's a black- totally black box. So that's interesting part of AI. Uh, maybe you know some, some story about this. Very recently, uh, the AI ju- just hack the connection, then they escape from the inside the laboratory to go outside the internet. So this could happen. Uh, that's why, because a human couldn't imagine. So the AI doing something different, and it's really a black box. Then, uh, that's interesting point. If I can be inside the development company as an artist, I can make something interesting hacking software, but it's a huge business, and, uh, I think this is not the moment for the artist. And also, as you know, all the data inside the AI is, uh, happenings in the past.    [00:50:02] Miko Lee: Right.    [00:50:04] Masaki Fujihata: And then, right, the present is important for the humans. What is the role of the artist? There is some, uh, sentence, artist is the person who is creating something new which has not exist before. so, uh, we are not AI, so w-we have to know who, what we should do in contrast to AI is the important moment    [00:50:37] Miko Lee: Thank you so much. I wonder if you would want to just reflect briefly on how this, this piece that you're presenting at Oakland Museum is very resonant right now in America because of the current politics of incarceration of peoples and you know, we're at the same, at the exact same concentration camps where Japanese Americans were held. Immigrants are being detained and put there right now. I'm wondering how this piece speaks to the moment that we're living in in the United States right now.   [00:51:13] Masaki Fujihata: Um, please do not make more mistakes that American government did before in 1942. So Our project can be a kind of reference what the American government did after the Pearl Harbor.    [00:51:39] Carin Adams: Masaki, would you wanna talk a little bit about the new piece that you're making?    [00:51:45] Masaki Fujihata: Oh, I see, I see. I think- That's a good idea. I, I totally forgot. Yeah. Thank you, Carin. Because I proposed to Carin and museum about to make a new piece. The idea is about, uh, the poster. The, that they… So the, in Okura case, maybe, uh, to l- late April in 1942, the poster paste on anywhere, everywhere inside the town, and talking about the, at the certain day, you cannot be stay here. You will be criminal. So, so this is the s- starting point. Then they need to come to the civil control station to sign up, and then one week later, the bus came in, then they need to go to the camp. Then the poster is now very famous, but, uh, usually, people didn't read it Then I, I asked to, collect volunteers to ask read this text on the poster, uh, several different locations inside the Oakland. So when you see the final result, the view of the people reading the text aloud is very peaceful, very bright, California sunshine and there is a lake behind and sometimes, you know, the buses came and stop and go there. So this is very peaceful, but the content is very strong- strongly contrast- co- contrasted. So it's a command from the government. I really wanted to, to make this contrast through this new production. So you, you will see three vertical monitors, and, 25 different group of people. I think there was nearly 45 people helped me to realize this   [00:54:02] Miko Lee: What is it you hope to evoke by adding this new piece of the relocation poster?   [00:54:08] Masaki Fujihata: I really wanted to involve some of the young generation and family and also, known Japanese American people. So all of these people, of course, have some fear against the, this moment, and then try to, uh, send messages. So they helped me to realize this.   [00:54:39] Carin Adams: The video is really going to provide the soundtrack for the exhibition. There is no sound in any of the other film elements or in the AR other than what visitors bring in conversation into the space. But they'll be able to hear the local volunteers that Masaki assembled reading the exclusion order text and we're expecting that to be very profound- impactful. And yes, some of the people who volunteered for this new video element were incarcerated themselves, others are descendants, and then there are just people who are representing different immigrant experiences who wanted to participate. So it's a very local production, and it really cites us in the present moment with this really chilling text from the past.    [00:55:33] Miko Lee: Thank you so much for joining me and chatting with me about the exhibit BeHere / 1942. I'm really excited to check it out, and I hope our audience gets a chance to go and see it all the way through the end of December at Oakland Museum.   [00:55:48] Carin Adams: Thank you so much for having us.    [00:55:50] Miko Lee: Please check out our website, kpfa.org/program/apexexpress to find out more about our show and our guests tonight. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating, and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. Apex Express is produced by Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Cheryl Truong, Isabel Li, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Miata Tan, Preti Mangala-Shekar and Swati Rayasam. Tonight's show was produced by me Miko Lee, and edited by Ayame Keane-Lee. Have a great night.   The post APEX Express – 9.3.26 – Beneath the Surface with Margaret Cho & Masaki Fujihata appeared first on KPFA.

The Jesse B. Cook collection at the Bancroft Library is an amazing assortment of photos and ephemera spanning early 20th century San Francisco. Jesse Cook himself also has a fascinating, but complicated history. Learn how he compiled this cherished collection as one of San Francisco's earliest and prolific scrapbookers, in this classic episode of Outside Lands San Francisco.

While preparing his lectures for UC Berkeley, Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber spent hours poring over the memoirs and writings of former University of California President Clark Kerr, seeking wisdom from the architect of California's 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education.Reflecting on this research, Eisgruber notes that he found more than just strategy; he found a personal connection. "I have been impressed by Kerr's wit, wisdom and decency,” he says, “and I have come to feel not only admiration but affection for him.”In his first of two lectures at Berkeley in February, Eisgruber draws on Kerr's 1963 “hinge of history” idea to explain why American research universities are especially vulnerable to political and social attacks today.Kerr believed there was a turning point in the mid-20th century where the role of universities shifted from the periphery of society to its center as primary engines of economic and social growth. Eisgruber contends that this newfound prominence made them higher-stakes targets for public and political frustration. He points to three post-1960s shifts — rising student debt, accelerating competition and universities' high profile in national debates over racial justice — as forces that have "compromised the political base that can help to protect higher education in moments of crisis.”Still, Eisgruber remains optimistic about the resilience of the American research university. He highlights the sector's ability to drive global recovery during the pandemic and its success in broadening its reach to include talent from all walks of life as proof of its enduring strength. While its shift to the center of national life has invited new pressures, he argues that the intense public focus on these institutions confirms their role as vital spaces for a diverse democracy to do its most important thinking.He suggests that the path forward lies in universities embracing this central, if contested, role by sustaining the vision Kerr championed: "a truly American university, an institution unique in world history, an institution not looking to other models but serving as a model for universities in other parts of the globe.”This talk was one of two lectures that Eisgruber gave on Feb. 24 and Feb. 26 as part of the Clark Kerr Lecture Series, co-sponsored by the Center for Studies in Higher Education, the Goldman School of Public Policy and Berkeley Law.Watch videos of both of Eisgruber's lectures.Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts/berkeley-talks).Music by HoliznaCC0.Photo via The Bancroft Library archive. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We return to Hopedale Massachusetts to view another Statue of Hope.

Show Notes episode 129 Sheldon Siegel Author interview ** Co-hosts: Cheryl McNeil Fisher and Kathy King** Join Cheryl and Kathy when they welcome SHELDON SIEGAL. Hot topics include in-depth conversation about the writing process, hotspots, or plot, twist, character, development, and transition to independent publishing on the Kindle platform. listen in as the best selling author provides key insights. Sheldon Siegel is the New York Times, USA Today, and Amazon bestselling author of the Mike Daley/Rosie Fernandez series of critically acclaimed courtroom dramas featuring San Francisco criminal defense attorneys Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez. He is also the author of the thriller The Terrorist Next Door, which features Chicago homicide detectives David Gold and A.C. Battle. His books have been translated into a dozen languages and sold millions of copies worldwide. He has been an attorney for more than thirty-five years,, specializing in corporate and securities law with the San Francisco office of the international law firm of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP. Sheldon began writing his first novel, SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES, on a laptop computer during his daily commute on the ferry from Marin County to San Francisco. Sheldon is a San Francisco Library Laureate, a former president of the Northern California chapter and a member of the national board of directors of the Mystery Writers of America, and an active member of the International Thriller Writers and Sisters in Crime. His work has been displayed at the Bancroft Library at UC-Berkeley, and he has been recognized as a distinguished alumnus of the University of Illinois and a Northern California Super Lawyer. Sheldon lives in Marin County with his wife, Linda, and a tabby cat named Betty who sleeps on the desk next to his computer all day. Contact Sheldon: https://www.SheldonSiegal.com Writing Opportunities Writing prompts, contests, Open Mic events, and more from Writing Works Wonders!! All details available at our Contact Us Portal Contact Information: Website www.WritingWorksWonders.com Main Book Webpage https://writingworkswonders.com/book/ Podcast email info@WritingWorksWonders.com Sign up for free writing prompts, Zoom links, contest and special events! Click to sign-up for our Email List Support this podcast through our Tip Jar or Patreon. Please Follow Us- We want to be social ;) Facebook @WritingWorksWonders Twitter @WritingWksPod Cheryl McNeil Fisher - Author, Keynote Speaker, Educator and Coach. Seminars and Workshops Adults and Children. https://www.cherylmcneilfisher.com/ Submit your work for publication on our site. Guest blogging, poetry, short stories at: https://www.livinginspiredfullyeveryday.com/ Dr. Kathleen P. King- Author, Author Coach, Speaker & Professor (Ret.). http://www.transformationed.com/ Interested in technology and adult learning? Check out Dr. King's newest book from Wiley: http://bit.ly/King2017 Streaming and Rebroadcasts We are proud to be hosted by ACB Community, streamed live on ACB MEDIA Channel 5, and rebroadcasted on 986TheMix.com Internet radio station and ACB Media. Find more resources and episodes for this podcast at https://writingworkswonders.com/ Support Writing Works Wonders: Advancing Beyond Barriers by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/writing-works-wonders Find out more at https://writing-works-wonders.pinecast.co Check out our podcast host, Pinecast. Start your own podcast for free with no credit card required. If you decide to upgrade, use coupon code writing for 40% off for 4 months, and support Writing Works Wonders: Advancing Beyond Barriers.

Welcome to Art is Awesome, the show where we talk with an artist or art worker with a connection to the San Francisco Bay Area. Today, Emily chats with Sculptor & Fiberworks Center founder Gyöngy Laky...Ging shares her incredible journey from being a refugee from Hungary to becoming a pivotal figure in textile arts. She talks about her initial inspiration, work at Fiberworks Center, and a teaching stint at UC Davis. Ging also discusses how her experiences and background influenced her unique approach to textiles, incorporating natural materials and cultural anthropology insights. The episode concludes with Ging reflecting on her artistic milestones and the significant impact of the Bay Area's creative environment.About Artist Gyöngy Laky:Gyöngy Laky's sculptural forms are exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the United States.  Internationally, her work has been included in exhibitions in Canada, Denmark, Sweden, England, Holland, Spain, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Italy, Columbia, Philippines, Japan and China. Laky has participated in the US Federal Art in Embassies Program in Bangkok, Thailand; NATO, Brussels, Belgium; and Poland. In addition to one-person exhibitions in the U.S., she has had solo exhibitions in England, Denmark, Hungary and Spain. She is also known for her outdoor site-specific installations which have occurred in the US, Canada, England, France, Austria, Bulgaria and Italy.A past recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, Award of Distinction, 11th International Triennial of Tapestry, Central Museum of Textiles, Lodz, Poland; and Award for Artistic Excellence, Women in the Arts, The Women's Foundation, San Francisco, CA, Laky was also one of the first textile artists to be commissioned by the Federal Art-in-Architecture Program.   Her work is in many permanent collections including the San Francisco MOMA, The Smithsonian's Renwick Museum of American Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Oakland Museum, the Contemporary Museum in Honolulu and others (see “Collections”). In 2002-03, she was one of a team of three to develop a comprehensive Arts Master Plan for the new state-of-the-art, US Federal Food and Drug Administration campus being built in Maryland. In 2003, a book, “Portfolio Series: Gyöngy Laky,” was published by Telos Arts Publishing, UK, and the Bancroft Library at UC, Berkeley, released her oral history. Her personal papers are in the Smithsonian Institution‘s Archives of American Art, Washington, DC. Laky's art has appeared in numerous books, magazines and catalogs in the US and abroad. April 2008, the New York Times Magazine commissioned her to create titles for its environmental issue (the titles received an award from the Type Directors Club).Laky was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1944 and emigrated to the United States as a small child.  She graduated from Carmel High School and completed undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley (1967-1971). Postgraduate work followed with the UC Professional Studies Program in India.  Upon her return, she founded the internationally recognized Fiberworks, Center for the Textile Arts, in  Berkeley, with accredited undergraduate and graduate programs.  As of 2005, Laky is Professor Emeritus of UC, Davis, (chair, Dept of Art mid-1990s). She joined the faculty at UCD in 1978 and soon after initiated establishing the independent Department of Environmental Design. In the early 1990's she developed a graduate program.Visit Gyöngy's Website:  GyongyLaky.comFollow  on Instagram:  @Gyongy.LakyFor more about Fiberworks Center for Textile Arts, CLICK HERE. --About Podcast Host Emily Wilson:Emily a writer in San Francisco, with work in outlets including Hyperallergic, Artforum, 48 Hills, the Daily Beast, California Magazine, Latino USA, and Women's Media Center. She often writes about the arts. For years, she taught adults getting their high school diplomas at City College of San Francisco.Follow Emily on Instagram: @PureEWilFollow Art Is Awesome on Instagram: @ArtIsAwesome_Podcast--CREDITS:Art Is Awesome is Hosted, Created & Executive Produced by Emily Wilson. Theme Music "Loopster" Courtesy of Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 LicenseThe Podcast is Co-Produced, Developed & Edited by Charlene Goto of @GoToProductions. For more info, visit Go-ToProductions.com

As a girl born in 1883 to a family who couldn't afford to send her to college, Elsie Robinson had limited options. To escape the drudgery of small-town life and then a stifling marriage, Elsie wrote. And wrote. And wrote. When her asthmatic son was home sick from school, she wrote and illustrated stories to entertain him. When she needed to make money to support herself and her son after her divorce, she wrote again. Eventually, her prolific writing caught the attention of the Hearst media empire, and Elsie became the most-read woman writer in America and the highest-paid woman writer in the Hearst organization. But today, few people remember Elsie Robinson or her writing. Joining me to help us learn more about Elsie Robinson is writer Allison Gilbert, co-author of Listen, World!: How the Intrepid Elsie Robinson Became America's Most-Read Woman. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is “Elsie Robinson, writer and columnist,” from the San Francisco Examiner, available via the Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley, and in the Public Domain. Additional Sources: Elsie Robinson “Elsie Robinson (1883-1956),” by Allison Gilbert, National Women's HIstory Museum. “ELSIE ROBINSON, COLUMNIST, DIES; Author of Syndicated 'Listen World' for King Features Succumbs at Age of 73,” The New York Times, September 9, 1956. “Listen, Benicia: Famed syndicated columnist and city native Elsie Robinson will be focus of Capitol event,” by Nick Sestanovich, Benicia Herald, September 7, 2017. “Pain,” by Elsie Robinson, Poetry Nook. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Host Miko Lee speaks with two women professors Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu and Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez about their approach to education, activism, motherhood and moving forward.   Show Transcript A Tale of Two Professors Story [00:00:00] Swati: Tonight on APEX Express, we have a piece highlighting the work of two professors with a lot in common, both Filipino scholar, activists, and grieving mothers who are approaching their work in similar and different ways. Listen in on Miko's interview, exploring both of their amazing backstories, their current work and where they see their futures. Also editorial side note Miko and Robyn's audio got a little funky at times. So it might be a little bumpy. [00:00:59] Miko Lee: Welcome Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu and Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez to APEX express. Dr. Robyn is the first Filipino American to serve as chair of the UC Davis Asian American Studies Department, the first one in 50 years. She also became the founding director of the Bulosan Center for Filipino studies and has authored so many books. Dr. Celine scholar filmmaker, and the new Dean of the Division of Arts at UC Santa Cruz. You worked at my Alma mater San Francisco State University in the School of Cinema. You were a professor of Asian-American feminist film and media studies at UC Santa Barbara. I mean, you've, you've been like through the whole California system. We are so happy to have you on APEX express. I believe you were the first Asian-American Dean in this position. And how does this feel for you to be at UC Santa Cruz during this work? [00:01:51] Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu: As the first woman of color Dean at UC Santa Cruz, as well as the first Asian American woman. Of course, it feels weighty, to hear that the lived experience of it is very much about prioritizing subjugated knowledges, making sure that we have an abundance of voices and abundance of traditions and knowledges that we are teaching so that students can really have access to you know what they want to study as well as be situated, and a long tradition of inquiry and method. It's really wonderful to be at the helm of a division that really takes seriously, people who want to practice art, people who want to study art historically, critically theoretically and we all have defined. Our role, and helping to make this world A place where everyone has a role, [00:02:48] Miko Lee: and art is just being part of who you are that it's just part of being human. Um, Robyn, I want to go way back and talk with you about when you first became politically active. [00:02:59] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: I would say that the beginnings of my political activism started when I was in either my freshman or sophomore year of high school. And it started with a letter. I was concerned about what we now call racial profiling of young Filipino American men in my neighborhood. I grew up in Union City, California in the east bay. And there was a supposed kind of gang problem in Union City and I recall young boys really in our neighborhood at school, who I thought were being unfairly targeted, not only by police, but also mistreatment really from other authority figures at school, I felt really concerned about that and wrote a letter. I was encouraged by my mom to express my opinions or my kind of concern about how my peers are being treated by writing a letter. And so I wrote the letter and I addressed it to the mayor of Union City, the chief of police, and the superintendent of the school district. And in the letter, I expressed how I felt that my peers were being unfair ly treated and proposed that they introduce what I was calling, multicultural education. The idea I thought was that if our teachers and authority figures really understood us better, and at the same time, if we encountered a stories and histories of our community that somehow this so-called gang problem could be somewhat addressed. So that was my first, I think, kind of a political act or act of activism. And I would then go from there really getting involved in electoral politics. And then after that when I'm in college is really when I started to get more involved in other kinds of organizing work community organizing work. [00:05:10] Miko Lee: I love that. What do you think, was it your parents' upbringing or your peers? What do you think rose up your feisty nature to be able to write back to the school board at such a young age? [00:05:22] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: I think it was a couple of things. I think one was actually my mother modeling a modeling sort of letter writing in particular as a mode of calling out issues of inequity or injustice and what had happened and I remember this very clearly. I think it probably was my earliest observation or experience of racism and it was at church. I just remember I grew up Catholic and somehow I just remember sitting in the pew and fidgeting and sort of halfway listening to the priest's sermon and I recall the priest saying something about how Filipinos were not contributing sufficiently enough to the parish. And I remember that very clearly. And I remember feeling that tension rise because there's so many people in mass who are Filipino and I could feel, my mother bristling at that. My father, I just, the tension was just so palpable. My mother was feeling after mass talking about how insensitive the priest had been. Didn't quite say racist, that it was just really wrong and a mis-characterization of the Filipino community. And she was going to write a letter and address it. And I remember observing that and that had a real impact on me. I think the influence again, via my mother is the fact that my middle name, which actually translates into ‘to be angry' comes from an ancestor on a maternal ancestor. It was a made up name by one of my ancestors who decided to change his name to Magalit it as an expression of defiance against the Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines and actually ended up joining the anti-colonial revolutionary cause himself. And so that was that's an important story that is passed on through my mom's, through my mom's family. We're very proud of that revolutionary history. I was always very proud of it always insist on using my middle name everywhere and anywhere. And so I think there's also that, that, that feeling, or I think I was encouraged to, we were encouraged to really be those people who would be critical of any circumstances where people are oppressed, exploited, marginalized. Even my father. Growing up he would tell me, you're so fortunate that I left the day before martial law was declared in the Philippines, because otherwise I would have been, I would have stayed and I would have been part of the movement to topple the dictatorship. And I wouldn't be able to be here and be your dad. And I recall to, with my father he drew really a hard and fast lines between himself and people in the community, even friendships would think, he walked away from friendships if he felt a friend was sympathetic to the dictatorship. So there's just all of these ways that might. Both, exhibited as anti-authoritarian kind of, the sort of critique of structures of power that I grew up with and I observed and was inspired by. So I think that's what explains why I would end up doing what I did as a freshman in high school. [00:08:39] Miko Lee: Wow. The power of being angry, built into your DNA and your name and your love it. We love to hear that. Dr. Celine What do you think Drove you into ethnic studies [00:08:54] Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu: I came to the United States with my family, in the early to mid eighties and I moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was one of three Filipino Americans in my high school of 3000 people. And the others were my siblings, and education for me was really sanctuary, like being at school because there was food because we were so poor and, we were the center of our worlds, my multicultural set of friends and I loved, learning about my new country, and when I moved to Berkeley as an undergrad, there were many questions that I had, like, why is it that, my parents, even though they were hyper educated in a way, had to work low wage jobs, as immigrants and they had to work two jobs and they were never around then why was I, and my sister, we were 14, 13 years old. We were already working, in order to help put food on the table for our large immigrant family. So I had so many questions. What was this about, why are we here? And. I loved ethnic studies at UC Berkeley, it was a way to really understand subjugated knowledges, and it was really understanding why we no longer ate together as a family because my parents had to work. At UC Berkeley, ethnic studies was such a wonderful place because it was an interdisciplinary approach to history, to cinema, to literature. It was the time where so many amazing people were there. Not only was it Trinh Min-ha, June Jordan, Cherrié Moraga. I learned in their classrooms and also created my own classrooms by becoming an activist, because there was so much in our experiences that I needed to see on paper. Like what it means to walk around with a large Asian American family, what it means to, grow up with a white mom, but be seen as a woman of color, like your closest intimate as this white woman who may or may not see you. So these were stories that my classmates were telling me. We did a lot of organizing, you know, a woman of color magazine named, ‘Smell This', a woman of color film festival, a woman of color retreat. We were really trying to figure out how can we be effective advocates in a world, using our education, using the power and weapons of our education in order to, make significant, impactful cultural contributions that will change the world. And I realized I wanted to really capture the historical moment of how there were so many women of color writing professors there, Maxine Hong Kingston, June Jordan, Cherrié Moraga. Were all there and we were all doing spoken word and poetry slams, and the tradition of women of color literature, with ‘This Bridge Called My Back' Audrey Lorde, Chrystos, Pat Parker and more, this was a vibrant, legacy growing all of us, all of these books were seeds, and I came up with the name, ‘Smell This' in the hallways of the co-op in which I lived in at the time. I think I didn't even really think about it sexually, even though, I'm a sexuality scholar and I'm a porn study scholar, I really didn't. I really thought of it as a multisensorial experience that you enter when you are exposed to writing. That's so truthful, that's so brutal and it's confrontation with, what it means to be a multiply subjugated person, just walking down the street, for me at the time you're growing up as a young adult and you're blossoming, your interests are blossoming, your sexuality is blossoming, and so it was for me, just this multi-dimensional kind of growth, and I wanted this name to assert that multisensorial experience of what it means to grow up in a world. And at the time, give yourself the permission to say my voice is important, my perspective is important, and that's why I called it that. I think somewhat innocently. And I remember just being on Sproul Plaza, blasting, hip hop music, and just roping in as many women of color as we could, to contribute to the magazine. And we had these gigantic parties and we had the band Yeasty Girls perform. And so we had these legendary epic parties that were all about validating the cultural production of a women of color. [00:13:13] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: I suppose you know, that early act of defiance or that act of resistance writing that letter was the beginnings of my journey towards ethnic studies .I think intuitively I knew that there was something problematic about the fact that I grew up in a predominantly community of color and that there was and most of the students, most of my peers were people of color. And yet most of the figures of authority, teachers, administrators were not people of color. And that the books that we were reading typically had scant mention of our community. So there's some, I think intuitively I knew that that could not be right. When I. First took an ethnic studies course after I transferred to Santa Barbara, my third year after a stint at community college. We're actually, I first encountered sort of women of color writers. But it was a class where I was introduced to This Bridge Called My Back, very important anthology by a co-edited by Cherrié Moraga. So that, was sort of my initial foray into kind of women's studies and ethics studies and then by my junior year at UC Santa Barbara, I had this opportunity to take all these classes to class and Chicano studies, a class in Black studies, but the class that really set me on this path toward academia was a class by Dr. Diane Fujino, it was her very first quarter teaching at UC Santa Barbara and Asian-American studies as an assistant professor. It was really the first time I had encountered a Asian American woman professor who also was unapologetically an activist. And that class seeing her just really changed my life. I was so inspired by Diane by what she was doing in the classroom, which she was inviting us to do students, I felt really challenged and really important in good ways by her and I thought, I think that's the way that I want to that, that's what I want to do. I knew I wanted to choose a career of service, I wasn't quite sure what that was going to be. I thought being a lawyer might be it then I changed my mind, then I thought, oh, maybe I should work as a lobbyist for some of these progressive causes. And then I changed my mind thought I even wanted to be an elected. Maybe then changed my mind. And then professor seemed like something that I could get into. I love learning, I love reading, I love research, I also got introduced to other options that could have been a possibility of me being a labor organizer, so yeah, professor felt like a potential way to actually be at the university lectern, but also to be able to write books that students might be able to encounter in other university classrooms and, Diane embodied this very real possibility for me and I chose to follow that path. She represented and continues to represent to me an approach to Asian-American studies that I want to see more of, I think that As much as Asian-American studies was born out of these movements for liberation, the Ethic Studies movement, the Third World Liberation Front, the Asian-American movement, Black Power movement. I think there is a way that I feel as if Asian American studies and Ethics Studies more broadly has become so institutionalized. And I understand that, some of the reasons for this hyper, this institutionalization of Asian-American studies or Ethnic Studies had everything to do with just the backlash against it and just survival. I think that to survive different kinds of decisions were made such that Asian-American studies are at the end, even ethics studies as a field, had to look and feel more the other disciplinary and interdisciplinary formations in the university and less this insurgent site for knowledge production and dissemination that it it had started off as, and Diane for me, always felt like, still feels like one of the few scholars who continues to see Asian-American studies and Ethnic Studies as the site for insurgent knowledge production and dissemination, as the site where we as scholars use our platforms use our training use the kinds of resources we have access to, to amplify the issues of our communities and to also work in partnership with the community in trying to reimagine everything as Grace Lee Boggs invites us to do, to do the critical work of the thinking and the dreaming and strategizing to achieve a better world for all of us. We created a scholar activist affinity group or section is what we call it. And then we'd, frequently organized panels where we would invite activists to come and engage our colleagues because, we recognize that activists and organizers are also thinkers and theoreticians who have really important frameworks and analysis of the world. And that we as scholars could benefit just as much as we as scholars are, doing full-time work and kind of thinking and teaching that we can also extend different kinds of insights to our organizer colleagues. [00:18:42] Miko Lee: For folks that want to hear more about this. There's actually an entire APEX express episode that covers a reading done by both Robin and Diane at Eastwind Books. Last year you both received a mentorship award. Can you share about how important it is to be a mentor and how you combine being both a mentor, an activist. And a scholar. How do you combine those elements? [00:19:12] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: you know, Mentorship is so important to me, I think on one hand, I benefited from mentorship clearly, I wouldn't have even been able to pursue this path, this career path if I hadn't had a mentor like Diane, Dr. Fujino to not just exist, but actually to see who cultivated a relationship with me who was willing to take the time to help me understand the world of academia which was a world that was completely foreign to me. Dr. Fujino, along with other mentors that I had as an undergraduate really helped guide me. On one hand I got research experience. So they both, they all helped me gain a real understanding of what an academic life actually feels like. I knew I wanted to be a professor, but I didn't quite know what getting a PhD would require and getting a PhD requires research and I needed the research experience and they guided me through that process by giving it to me helping me to cultivate my own research questions and carry out my own research project. And all of that not only exposed me to this world to confirm for me that yeah, absolutely that is a path I want to pursue. And they were very frank and honest about what kinds of challenges I might face. I don't know that I fully understood some of their kind of cautionary kind of tales about academia. It took having to actually get into a program and go through it for me to fully understand what I think they were trying to advise me about, and namely that is just, the elitism of academia the ways in which, you know, academia can be limited especially if you're a kind of an activist or committed to social justice and that there are ways that, academia isn't always necessarily the place for that sort of work. Mentorship was so valuable for me individually, and then as I finished my doctorate the mentors I had, helped me just provide that emotional support. Even sometimes it's not even about the nuts and bolts of how do you do research and how do you finish a dissertation? It's simply just supporting you and making you feel like you belong in a space that makes you feel like you don't more often than not. And so just having that community of support was important from mentors. But, there are still too few people of color as more senior professors, a lot of my mentors were my peers who were just a couple of years ahead of me, and I vowed that, as soon as I was in a position that I would be that person who would throw the gate open and keep it open and and support people. But I also approach mentorship in in my own sort of way. I think, I have always tried to be just very transparent with my students about what, the challenges of academia can feel like for a woman of color, for a person of color. I also, I had a child when I was in grad school. So that also created other challenges that other people didn't necessarily have to have. And I, I wanted to be able to, again, to support women who might make choices in graduate school, around, having families or, all of that so mentorship is so vital I think to ensuring that academia continues to be open to alternative voices and particularly folks of color like academia sometimes it's like a long hazing process. I feel like this isn't any different than being in a fraternity or sorority, I feel like, it's all just this huge hazing process. It's not fully transparent about what goes on and nobody really wants to let on. And , that prevents us from moving forward. You get stuck in grad school, you end up not finishing your doctorate and, dropping out or you get a job, but then you can't get tenure. And there's just so much that I feel like is so shrouded in secrecy sometimes about academia and I wanted to be able to be that person if I got through that, I would keep the gate wide open and give folks, as much information as possible and support in, moving forward and through through academia and all of the hoops that, you have to jump to get to a place where I am now. [00:23:24] Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu: Mentorship and activism to me are all so interrelated. When I went to UC Berkeley as an undergrad, and I think you can say this about the UC system as a whole, it's usually an experience of disorientation when you get different kinds of pressures around you saying that your history is unimportant. Your voice is unimportant. Your perspective is unimportant, and this is why ethnic studies exists. And this is why programs like the minority summer research program and various other programs are designed. So as to lift up people who otherwise feel like they don't belong and they don't deserve to study, and they don't deserve the time that is the gift of mentorship. And so I was given the gift of mentorship by so many faculty members who really looked me in the eye and said, what did you make of this material that you read? And to say that, my perspective based on, the knowledge I was learning, the methods I was learning mattered really meant that we could have important places in the world as cultural thinkers, as people who can make an intervention in how we interpret things that we experience. That's what criticism is about. I think a lot about how 88% of critics are white. It means that even the material that we looked at are dissected from such a limited demographic, what a rip off. What would it mean if cultural critics were more diverse, what a robust enriching debate that would be more, and so when a student walks into my office, for the past 20 plus years of teaching, I wanted to share that gift of mentorship to let them know that the university needs their perspective in order for it to do its job. Because if we hear from too few people, then we don't know as much as we should. If it's true that over 90% of the most popular films are made by white men. And it is true, according to the Annenberg Studies at USC and UCLA, then what we know about love, marriage, sexuality, immigration, families more, comes from such a limited place. And it takes away from our understanding of each other. It becomes such a limited imprisoning understanding of each other. If we don't hear from more people, and people who are really critical people who say that, what we shouldn't know, we should know, and the university is a place to dig up those stories. And so for me as a Dean, it's not only about the mentorship I give, but the structures of mentorship that we implement. I think we all need mentors, even for me as a Dean, I have mentors who are Presidents, mentors who are Provosts, so that I have a better understanding of the institution. And I think about this a lot for my, for the faculty in my division. I hope that everyone has a network where you run your ideas by, because you only become stronger for it. You, you have a larger perspective of how institutions work and what your strengths are and then you realize, oh my goodness, all those people who gave me that time. What a big deal that was, that they recognized that you were worth the time that you were worth, the space and the knowledge, and I recognized how good it felt, to be the recipient of that. And then once you start doing it, you realize that. Oh, it's so amazing to be able to give it back, because you're really shaping the next generation. I learned so much from them. That's really the goal for me, not only am I a Dean, but I'm also a grieving mother. And I think a lot about that, about how. All of us are going to confront inevitably, the death of a loved one and so I think about. What our students are doing is really, preparing to have a role in the world that a significant, that really takes advantage of their passion, their strength, their commitment, so that they can, find a purpose that will enable them to get through, this inevitable pain. [00:27:24] Miko Lee: Thank you for sharing that. That really makes me think about your latest film, the Celine Archive, which is such a beautiful personal documentary that, combined so much of your pain and also just uncovering this history of Filipina American. I wonder if you can talk more about what inspired your film. [00:27:45] Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu: So in the mid nineties, 1994, through 1996, I believe around that time the community historian Alex Fabros was teaching a Filipino American history class, Filipino American experience class. There were about 200 students who were going through that curriculum and they found the story that he had grown up with about a Filipino American immigrant woman who was buried alive by her community in the 1930s Stockton Jersey island area. I myself was discovering the story at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. And I made this film, in the era of the Me Too and Time's Up movements and really wanted to dig deeply into our capacity to suppress the violent experiences that women undergo in our communities. There's so little known and studied about Filipino American history in our curriculum K through 12. And when we do hear about it, we primarily hear men's stories, the late great historian, Dawn Mabalon and talks quite a lot about this and like her and like many other historians and community organizers, cultural workers and the Filipino American community. I wanted to amplify her story. So as to invite us to think about our female past and how Asian American women continue to endure violent silencing we see this, especially, today, not only in the Atlanta shootings, but in the murder of Christina Yuna Lee in New York. [00:29:32] Miko Lee: Can you share a little bit more about how you decided to weave both. Adding this Filipino woman's story into our broader awareness but also weaving in your personal story, sharing a name with the woman who was murdered and your personal story of your tragedy in your family. How did you decide to weave those stories together? [00:29:54] Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu: You know, when people undergo. An unexpected, very sudden death of a loved one, in my case, it was the death of my eight year old son from a common virus that attacked his heart, and in the case of Celine Navarro in the 1930s, she was abducted tortured and punished by her community, supposedly for committing an act of infidelity. Even though she was undergoing violence for quite some time within the community. The death happened, very suddenly her family did not know what had happened or where she was. So when you undergo a sudden and unexpected death, the meaning of your own life, really comes to the, fore. You become, I think, intensely alive because your loved one cannot have their life. So the question then emerges, what do you do with your life? And I had to turn to making the film as an act of creativity in the face of devastation, you know, my own demise because the death of a child. Could really have meant my own death, even though I was still alive. And in the act of filmmaking, you're really bringing together a community, in my case, it's bringing together not only community historians and Filipino-American scholars in the academy, but also my students, I think I opened up a way of speaking with my students that acknowledged, the pain that they also undergo, and it became for us a collective effort of looking into history and I'm making it come alive by becoming close to Celine Navarro's family. So when the articles first came out about her, it became such an affirmation of this unbelievable thing really did happen and we carry it with us. This is something that flows, within multiple generations of her family. And it's a question for me I think that I really think about a lot, like my son was eight, but he had a community, he had a huge impact in our own family about the way, he lived this life. So the question for me was how do you remember someone you love, who died but continues to live almost like in a very physical way, I feel his presence. And so I. Take the love that I continue to feel for my son and use that to make something in this world. I'm so happy to be alive, to be able to make this film. For example, that I can make this gift through the film for Celine Navarro's family, but then also to invite Filipino American women to say, you can be the center of your own story, and that your story is multilayered and it's worth investigation, because of course, what I found out in digging up Celine Navarro's story was that she herself was a very courageous woman who spoke up against domestic violence, that led her to testify against men who were protecting another violent man. I can't even imagine what that was like, and so to be able to pull up that story and to ask the question that began the film where are Filipino women in American history? I wanted to start the movie in that way because I want everyone to care about Filipino women so I wanted that to also be a courageous act that honored the subject of my film. [00:33:21] Miko Lee: Thank you so much. I'm one, just so sorry for the loss of your son. And so appreciative of the fact that you utilize your grief to funnel it into a beautiful work of art. Thank you so much for that [00:33:34] Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu: You're welcome and I also wanted to say, that my new film 80 years later, is about my family on my husband's side. It explores the racial inheritance of Japanese American family incarceration during World War II. As you may know, this year is the 80th anniversary of executive order 9066 that imprisoned 120,000 Japanese Americans, and my film shows. Conversations between survivors and their descendants as they continue to grapple with their legacy and I asked the question, how do we care for our stories? What stories do we feel responsible for carrying or admonishing or living? What is that ongoing legacy and how do we live it? [00:34:23] Miko Lee: Well, I'm looking forward to seeing it. That's very exciting. So much of what you're saying around adding women's stories are hidden stories. How we care for our stories. It reminds me of a Dr. Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio talks about this idea of Koana, which is a Hawaiian word for many perspectives that we have all these layers. For so many white Americans, we see all those different layers, but for our people, for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, we don't get the multitude of stories. I'm wondering if you cover some of this in your upcoming book, The Movies of Racial Childhoods: Screaming, Self Sovereignty in Asian America. [00:35:05] Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu: Yes. So my new book that's forthcoming from Duke University Press “The Movies of Racial Childhoods” it's motivated by two very powerful forces that I can't deny. The first is it's a book that really explores who my son would be now, if he were alive, I think about, the independence of one who was in middle childhood, one who is in adolescence, when my son died, I was so stunned by the world that he owned apart from me. When you think about a child, you think, oh, I control what they're exposed to, who they talk to, but when they're in school, they meet so many people and they create their own world. So I found out things that I didn't know, that how he was the judge of handball in the recess, world, so if something happened, he would adjudicate what was fair or unfair. I had no idea that he was doing this, and he had been doing it for years. And when I look at the films that I'm studying, I'm always stunned by, how the subjectivity of people of color are eclipsed. So that's the second motivation of the book is when I think about childhoods, you always think about an innocent kind of white childhood. Oh, they don't work because they're children. But we think about people of color from the beginning they, they work, they enslaved children had to work and they had no right to play for example, when you're looking at the scholarship of, African-American childhoods, so what does it mean to talk about an Asian or Asian American childhood? Like people say, oh, there's going to represent our family. So you're forever a baby, in that vision. But there's also this premature, adultification that co-exists with this intense infantilization and you also see the college admissions process. It's oh, you can't play around because you have to get into an amazing school. Therefore you have to disavow play and you have to become, the future lawyer of America while you're 12, and you can also see this in the, sexualization of youth as well. So I'm trying to figure out, know those two questions. I've just finished the book and hopefully it'll be out next year. [00:37:16] Swati: You are tuned in to APEX Express at 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley. And online@kpfa.org. [00:37:28] Miko Lee: Dr. Robyn is the academic elitism that you talk about why you founded the Women of Color, Non-binary People of Color Scholars Inclusion Project? [00:37:36] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: Oh, yeah, absolutely. , I could tell you stories about my experiences of just racism in academia. So WACSIP or the Women of Color Scholars Inclusion Project, it's really a space primarily for those who identify as women of color or non-binary of color, both graduate and faculty. And it's really meant as a safe space for us to be able to convene and support one another. It started off as simply a support group where we could all gather from across campus and all the various places where we are. If you're a woman of color, a non binary, a person of color, the likelihood is that there's just always one or two of you in a particular department or program, and so part of what we wanted to simply do is just get everybody together from across campus, in a space that felt safe where we could literally break bread with one another and be very honest with one another and transparent about what we were struggling with. There is a way that sometimes you feel like you're being gaslighted or you're not really certain that what you've experienced is actually some form of racism or sexism. And sometimes all you need is just, a space where people who have experienced what you've experienced can just affirm that yes, your experience is a real thing and it's not okay and we're here to simply be there as support. We also would organize more formal programs, of course organizing people to come and provide tips and tricks, I guess, to approach teaching and how to, negotiate the challenges of teaching, but especially sometimes the challenges of teaching as women of color. Teaching about race and gender and sexuality as women of color and, contending with sometimes the undermining of our authority as professors in the classroom or by our peers. We'd also organize more formal workshops like that. Writing workshops even, to provide folks with support on publishing because that adage, publish or perish is a very real thing when you're at a major research university, if you do not publish, you cannot secure tenure, you cannot move up in the academic kind of pecking order. So yeah, that was what the intention of the space was, is to create this space of support and it was also to engage as we could in institutional change, trying to document our collective experiences and offer up recommendations to higher ups around shifts that needed to happen to transform institutional culture. That is the piece that was always the struggle. And perhaps what's fed into my frustration with academia, among many other things, but we were successful in providing a space of support for one another. To what extent these groups that I've founded, helped to really shift institutional culture less clear. [00:40:20] Miko Lee: I'm wondering, because WACSIP was has been focused on networking around Critical Race and Ethnic Studies has the anti- CRT fervor that sort of going on by right wing propaganda. Has that impacted your work? [00:40:34] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: Yeah, I think anti-CRT fervor it's interesting. I don't know, to what extent that actually has impacted my work at the university in the sense that I feel as if academia has been effectively anti-CRT and anti-Ethnic Studies for a very long time. And it doesn't have to be articulated in the ways that the current movement that's engaged primarily at banning CRT in the K through 12 levels, it's never taken that kind of vitriolic kind of tone at the university, but we know it by the failures of investments, in our departments, in faculty of color who do work on race. So we've been dealing with, I feel like I, along with my colleagues who do this sort of work, we've been subject to “anti- CRT” campaigns at the university level for quite some time now. But again, how they've manifested has been in the form of, a failure of investments whether it's we can't get new hires, we can't get funding support for our research, whether we're not being recruited to take leadership positions, how many times have I been in conversation with people administrators who I know barely encounter women who look like me, on the faculty and can never get my name right. Or know who I am at all. This is just what we're contending with. So in some ways, what's happening outside the university doesn't affect us because we've already been under attack certainly it doesn't help us either. [00:42:09] Miko Lee: Dr. Celine You have so many things in the works right now at the same time. How are you balancing all this? [00:42:15] Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu: As Dean, I have to take care of so many people not to take care of the institution, and I think a lot about how there's very few Asian-American women in this role and I think a lot about how, we live such a intensely sexualized, life. There is that force of sexualization that I've felt growing up, throughout my childhood, throughout my early adulthood and as a full grown woman, this intense sexualization, and I don't think that's compatible with our understanding of who is a leader. There's an amazing book by Margaret Chin called “Stuck”, which identifies how very few Asian Americans there are in C-suites, but also in executive leadership roles, but just stunning considering how many Asian-Americans are in these, leading higher ed institutions, but so few of us are leaders of higher ed institutions, right? So it's important, every day to think about how I'm refashioning, what is a popular understanding of what leadership looks like. It is one that is a compassionate and empathetic. And also, how I have to take care of myself through it because you're so in service of others. And I actually go to my own work in order to always remember what is the purpose of my life? What is it that I am protecting in the enterprise of the university, which is, the freedom to inquire. With courage about the most challenging issues of our day, so yeah, it's working out for me, going to my own work, even in the most demanding moments of leadership. It's a reminder, you know what I want to make sure our faculty and students and staff have access to, which is, the excellence of inquiry and debate that is truly available in the university unlike other places, in our world right now you have so many reactionary uneducated, superficial perspectives, but what we do in the university is so special. The seminar is so special where you come into a room and you would have read, material deeply, closely together. You figure out the questions that you have that have been asked by generations before you, you stand on the shoulders of people who have done the work in order to produce your own. There's no greater pleasure. So I'm so happy to be the guardian of that, I'm so happy to lead the arts division that UC Santa Cruz, because that is our enterprise and what's amazing about it is that it produces beautiful work, impactful work, needed work in our world today. I think about empowering every single voice, in our university and to be open, to be surprised by it. And I think the abundance of voice, doesn't just mean the background, that you carry the cultural inheritances that you're trying to grapple with, but it's really also working with people who are different from you, across class, across nation, across region, to see what you can come up with together. And so the students really feel like, oh my God these films are really going to make an impact, and so I think a lot about what we can do on university campuses that really train the next generation of students to be ready for a truly, multiracial world, in 2045, we're going to be a majority people of color country, and so our students need to be educated as, as widely and broadly as possible not only in terms of what they know, but also how they take care of themselves. And we're doing so much here. That's so exciting we're saying these are the people who are coming to this campus and trying to figure out their voices, trying to learn their craft. And what we're going to do is to give them a space in order to get. share their experiences, whether it's with policing or prison abolition, the university is a place where we can do all of that. [00:46:11] Miko Lee: Robyn, I've heard you talk about being a people's professor. Can you share what that means? [00:46:17] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: Sure for me, people's professor it means that the university pays me, but I work for my community. And what that means is that I have always seen my work, whether it's my research and scholarship, you know what I decide to research who I'm writing for when I do, when I write what I teach, how I teach it what I do, but recognizing kind of the stature that comes with being a university, professor, all of my research, my teaching, how I move in the world is driven by and rooted in my community organizing and activist commitments. It comes out of my personal interest, true, but I've been very attuned, always to the issues that emerge in the organizing spaces that I am part of. I've always been a member of a community organization wherever I've been. So I have commitments, it's not simply that I have my ear on the ground and I see issues that pop up in the media. I have commitments, I'm part of the community, I joined organizations, I know what our communities are grappling with and all of that is always shaped my research agenda and found its way in my teaching. That's what I mean by people's professor that, my allegiance is not to the university, my allegiance is not even to my career and advancing my career. It's really to, using my skills, using my training, using my platform to advance the work of social justice. I think that's the role I feel like I want to play. That's why I entered academia to begin with. [00:48:00] Miko Lee: So your next iteration of the people's professor after you leave UC Davis next year, will be the School for Liberating Education. [00:48:09] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: The School for Liberating Education is quite simply a platform that allows anybody in the community to be able to access Ethic Studies knowledge, I think it's just so vital and healing and transformative to take Ethnic Studies courses. And yet, as you mentioned earlier, we are under attack. We've had many important Ethnic Studies victories, but there've been sufficiently forces who've managed to water down the kind of curriculum that many of us who fought for Ethnic Studies and continue to fight for Ethics Studies really want. And so among the things that the pandemic offered us is new kinds of technologies to connect virtually and, I myself, was taking virtual courses as part of my own healing process in the wake of the loss of my son in August of 2020. And it occurred to me that, these courses were amazing for my own healing journey and that I could possibly use these same platforms that were helping me to be able to offer Ethnic Studies to a broader audience of folks, especially in a context where Ethnic Studies or CRT was being viciously attacked. So yeah, that's really what it started off as, and in its first phase it's been a series of online courses first in, Asian American studies, which is really in my wheelhouse, and in Filipinx Studies specifically, I'd like to expand even more of the offerings that dive deep into the Chicanx experience and Latinx experience the Black experience, Native studies, Native and Indigenous studies and interracial kind of examinations as well, just in terms of the online courses. I guess the 2.0 version of this School for Liberating Education is the courses that I'm hoping to offer here on site at the new farm that we've just purchased. We want to be able to host intensive learning retreats and kind of educational workshops that center land-based and Indigenous knowledges. So in other words, either doing in-person short courses that are somewhat based on the current offering of courses online or extensions of them or just kind of new courses. There's a lot of new work in advancing healing justice that I also want to help to organize and curate here at the farm. Definitely want to center these land based and Indigenous knowledges and I'm super excited about the possibilities of what I can do as a people's professor outside of the space of academia outside of also the space of, the politics of it all and here. We're just at the beginnings of setting up the farm proper we're beginning to break ground because we have some seeds in the ground. I have my Hmong father and mother-in-law are helping us and already passing on generations of wisdom about the land and how to till the land and how to, just be in community with the land, just, in the work that they've been doing and helping us to cultivate it, but yeah, this is the next phase and I'm just really excited about the possibilities for learning that I can extend, but also for myself, I don't see myself as only being the professor actually in this space. I see myself more as an organizer and a curator who has some knowledge to impart, but also as somebody who can gathered together other people with other forms of expertise. [00:51:27] Miko Lee: It's a combination of a lot of your wheelhouse, a lot of your strengths as an educator and doing cross solidarity work and bringing in this sense of connecting to the land and healing and wellness. It's very beautiful. I'm looking forward to learning more and we will post a link to School for Liberating Education in the show notes for APEX Express. You spoke about healing and wellness. And I know 2020 was a really hard year and I am so sorry for the loss of your son. I really appreciate how you are turning that just tragic loss into a powerful foundation. Can you speak about the foundation and what that's all about? [00:52:08] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: Yeah. Absolutely. I'm still struggling. The healing process is ongoing for me. And people often talk about how there are different kinds of losses one can experience, and I've experienced a lot of those kinds of losses. I've lost a dear grandparent, my grandmother who helped raise me, I've lost a parent. I lost my father in 2014. And all of those losses, hurt in deep ways, of course, but there is something acute about the loss of a child. And though, he was a young man so full of promise though, just at the young age of 22 to have lost his life. And the foundation is an opportunity for me to ensure that his legacy and everything that he was so passionate about and that he lived and fought and died for lives on. And, so the Amado Khaya Foundation is meant to be a space that will support the causes that , was so passionate about. Clearly indigenous people's struggles, that's where he spent the last few months of his life, he was serving the Magguangan and Maduro in the wake of terrible typhoons that had hit the island. He was also very passionate about Ethnic Studies, that was an issue he was very involved in before leaving for the Philippines. He was passionate about housing justice. He really came of his own as a community organizer and activist. And I want to just ensure that, the work that he started can continue, but I also want to center mental health and wellness in the work that Amado Khaya does because he really acutely understood the ways that community organizers and activists hold the collective trauma of our people. His father who I am no longer with, was an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa. Had really experienced the violence of the apartheid regime was witness to the violent clashes between activists and the police and the state, and that had a major impact on Amado's father. And deep mental health impacts that Amado recognized, so that's something I really want to also center in the Amado Khaya Foundation is not just continuing to support the organizations or the issues he fought for, but to support the mental health and wellness of organizers themselves, who are doing all this great work and kind of providing them the support and care that they also really require to continue the work of social justice and among the things that we've we've done through Amado Khaya, we're still finishing up our 501c3 process. But we have a home that we purchased in honor of Amado called Amado's Kaia, which translates into Amado is home. Kaia actually also means home in Zulu. But we have a home that we offer as a gift to organizers as a sanctuary refuge for rest. We've been able to get some grants and in the process of setting up a digital media lab, Amado was a aspiring filmmaker. So we want to be able to also use media film in particular, which was what he was passionate about, and video as a way of also supporting activists causes. Part of what I'm also hoping that Amado Khaya does , and this is what the connection comes back to the school, I'm very inspired by Grace Lee Boggs, so Re-Imagination Lab is the social enterprise that holds all of my kind of entrepreneurial initiatives and the idea is that we want to get to a place where we generate a surplus revenue that we would reinvest into Amado Khaya, other non-profits. Somebody who's worked in alongside nonprofits we know how much our, a nonprofit organizations struggle to hustle for funding. And they're often beholden to foundations, that, oftentimes relate to non-profits in what amounts to a very colonized and very white supremacist, relationship and which constrain the kind of work that nonprofit organizations can do in service of the community. And so I want to be able to get to a place where Amado Khaya will either draw sufficient donations from individuals or revenues from Re-Imagination Lab so that we can help fund movements without constraints so they can do the work that they need to do without any limitation. I think that there are a lot of us who are trying to figure out how do we redistribute resources in our community and not have to be beholden to foundations that may very well be responsible for creating the very problems that nonprofits are forced to have to address. [00:56:56] Miko Lee: Dr Robyn, the people's professor. Thank you so much. Dr. Celine thank you both for turning your grief into positive action and thank you for just continuing to share your work with by and for the broader community. I really appreciate what you're doing. [00:57:12] Miko Lee: Please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program, backslash apex express to find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important. Apex express is produced by Miko Lee Jalena Keane-Lee and Paige Chung and special editing by Swati Rayasam. Thank you so much to the KPFA staff for their support have a great night. The post APEX Express – 11.3.22 – A Tale of 2 Professors appeared first on KPFA.

Justice Harry Low was the first Asian-American Judge in California. He served as Municipal Judge under Governor Edmond G. "Pat" Brown, as Superior Court Judge under Governor Ronald Reagan, as a Judge in the 1st District Court of Appeals under Governor Jerry Brown, and as Insurance Commissioner under Governor Gray Davis. Justice Low reformed numerous civil rights and immigration laws. Notably, he revised the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and also partnered with Jewish attorneys to sue the government on behalf of discriminated and disenfranchised African-Americans. Even in retirement, Justice Low was a champion of equality, helping those in need to overcome language barriers and obstacles in education and healthcare. Historians and philanthropists David Lei & Bruce Quan, Jr., and university professor Anna Eng, conducted the following interview for the Bancroft Library four months prior to Justice Low's passing. We are honored to partner with them to bring you the story of Justice Harry Low (1931-2021). https://www.dailyjournal.com/articles/365374-justice-harry-low-first-chinese-american-judge-in-the-bay-area-was-a-bridge-across-communities

Welcome to Beyond The Fog Radio! Recording for Season 3 is underway, but in the meantime, our team wanted to take a look back at some of our favorite episodes from both Season 1 and Season 2. This week, our spotlight is on the culturally and historically rich community of Chinatown — and who better to tell us about this amazing neighborhood than the equally amazing David Lei? In April of 2021, the Beyond The Fog Radio team had the honor to speak to Mr. Lei, a retired social worker and businessman who currently works with various nonprofit organizations to promote community-building, youth education, and the arts. He is an active participant within the Chinese Performing Arts Foundation, the Asian Art Museum, the Chinese-American Community Fund, Chung Ngai Dance Troupe, the Academy of Chinese Performing Arts, the World Arts West San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, the Bancroft Library, and the Center for Asian American Media — and a tried-and-true San Franciscan and wonderful human being. Meet David Lei!

Our story begins in 1899, when two archaeologists — Arthur Hunt and Bernard Grenfell — were on an expedition in Northern Egypt in an ancient town once known as Tebtunis on a search for mummies and other ancient artifacts.This was during a growing Western fascination with ancient Egypt that was later dubbed Egyptomania. Researchers hunted all things Egyptian — especially human mummies, partly because they represented the Western obsession with bringing the dead back to life.While the team were excavating the town's cemeteries, they found something unexpected: crocodile mummies. Instead of being thrilled at the discovery, the archaeologists saw the reptilian mummies as getting in the way of what they really wanted. But a new generation of Egyptologists have a different view. They see these crocodiles as a means of understand Egyptians' views of fear, strength, pleasing their gods, and even death. But those aren't the only secrets they contain. To hold the mummies' shape, priests would stuff the mummies with waste papyri that had writing on it that people didn't have a use for anymore.This waste papyri, plus other texts that were found in Tebtunis, reveal what daily life was like for the ancient Egyptians. It's knowledge that's invaluable to social historians today.Joining the show to discuss these curiosities are Rita Lucarelli, professor of Egyptology and the faculty curator of Egyptology at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, and Andrew Hogan, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri at the Bancroft Library. We discuss all the ways that the most unlikely of items can connect us to the ancient past and understand our predecessors.

The Jesse B. Cook collection at the Bancroft Library is an amazing assortment of photos and ephemera spanning early 20th century San Francisco. Jesse Cook himself also has a fascinating, but complicated history. Learn how he complied this cherished collection as one of San Francisco's earliest and prolific scrapbookers.

Many people, tourists and San Franciscans alike, think of Chinatown as restaurants and knickknacks, and don’t recognize Chinatown for the culturally rich, deeply historical, and close knit community it is. It is a neighborhood as resilient as its people, both of which have faced turmoil and struggle in their histories. We were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to speak to David Lei, who shared his encyclopedic knowledge of Chinatown’s history with us. David Lei worked in Chinatown as a social worker for at-risk youth before starting his business in 1981 where he specialized in exporting consumer products to Mexico. In 2003 Lei sold his business, retiring to indulge his passions for community building, youth education, and the arts. He is an active participant with several nonprofit organizations including The Chinese Performing Arts Foundation, the Asian Art Museum, the Chinese American Community Fund, Chung Ngai Dance Troupe, Academy of Chinese Performing Arts, World Arts West - San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, the Bancroft Library, and the Center for Asian American Media. David Lei is a tried and true San Franciscan, he grew up attending San Francisco public schools, graduated from UC Berkeley, and raised a family here. Meet David Lei!

Today’s episode is brought to you by John’s full series of crime thrillers available right now. You can get them through Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/John-A.-Hoda/e/B00BGPXBMM%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share Sheldon Siegel is the New York Times, USA Today, and Amazon best-selling author of the critically acclaimed legal thriller series featuring San Francisco criminal defense attorneys Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez. He is also the author of the thriller novel The Terrorist Next Door featuring Chicago homicide detectives David Gold and A.C. Battle. Sheldon’s books have been translated into a dozen languages and sold millions of copies worldwide. A native of Chicago, Sheldon earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois in Champaign in 1980, and his law degree from the University of California-Berkeley in 1983. He specializes in corporate and securities law with the San Francisco office of the international law firm of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP. Sheldon began writing his first book, SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES, on a laptop computer during his daily commute on the ferry from Marin County to San Francisco. A frequent speaker and sought-after teacher, Sheldon is a San Francisco Library Literary Laureate, a member of the National Board of Directors and the President of the Northern California chapter of the Mystery Writers of America, and an active member of the International Thriller Writers and Sisters in Crime. His work has been displayed at the Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley, and he has been recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus of the University of Illinois and a Northern California Super Lawyer. Sheldon lives in Marin County with his wife, Linda, and a 17-year-old tabby cat named Betty. They also have twin sons named Alan and Stephen. He is a lifelong fan of the Chicago Bears, White Sox, Bulls, and Blackhawks. His twelfth Mike Daley/Rosie Fernandez story, FINAL OUT, was released on January 26, 2021. He is currently working on his next novel.https://www.amazon.com/Sheldon-Siegel/e/B000APIXDQ Thank you for listening. If you have a moment to spare please leave a rating or comment on Apple Podcasts as that will help us expand the circle around our campfire. If you have any questions please feel to reach out to me via my website http://www.johnhoda.comSubscribe now to ensure you catch next weeks episode of How to Rocket Your PI Business PodcastApple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-rocket-your-pi-business-podcast/id1507578980Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/3XyqgbdrlWbBpnTBYvFYDk?si=kT_29qTMQSWvdeIZOXWRFg

Episode 06: Maureen Forys (a.k.a MAILBAIT) has over 25 years of experience working in book publishing and graphic design. Maureen publishes zines, artistamps, and small press publishing projects. Her sly sense of humor and far-reaching knowledge of graphic design make her work instantly recognizable. Maureen's "Herstorical Women of Oakland, California" artistamps are in the permanent collections of The Bancroft Library and the San Francisco Public Library, among others. ______________________________________________________________________________ Show notes:  --> Follow Maureen's adventures on Instagram: @mailbait --> Interested in knowing more about Maureen's "Herstorical Women of Oakland, CA"artistamp sheets? Email: maureen@happenstance.net --> Harrild & Sons printing and bindery equipment --> Briar Press (online forum for letterpress and bindery equipment) --> "Le Majeur" middle finger rubber stamp by Le Tampographe Sardon _____________________________________________________________________________ The Senders Receive intro/outro music is titled "Successful"; the musical artist is Keetsa. This track is used as per the artists Creative Commons usage statement, which can be found here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Additional sound editing and engineering by Von Span. 

When archeologists, funded by University of California benefactor Phoebe A. Hearst, found hundreds of crocodile mummies on an expedition to Northern Egypt in 1899, they were annoyed. They were searching for human mummies and artifacts, fueled by Egyptomania — the Western obsession with all things Egyptian. When they found papyri — paper's earliest ancestor — stuffed inside of the mummies with text written on it by Egyptians thousands of years before, they were suddenly interested. But instead of collecting the mummies, they began to break them open, remove the papyri and discard the crocodiles.Now, more than 100 years later, 19 mummified crocodiles are part of the Egyptian collection at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. These mummies, along with a collection of papyri held by the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri at the Bancroft Library, give us clues about how everyday ancient Egyptians lived and how far they went to appease crocodiles, hoping their devotion would win them some good will toward humankind.Listen to the episode, read a transcript and see photos on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In 2014, in partnership with The Bancroft Library at the University of California Berkeley, we launched the NWP Archives Project to ensure preservation and accessibility of NWP organizational records, publications, and resources, including more than 100 oral history interviews from founding Writing Project site directors, scholars, teacher-leaders, and funders. Hear about the archives' grand opening and learn a little NWP history from NWP leaders past and present.

Renata Kobetts Miller is Professor of English and Deputy Dean of Humanities and the Arts at the City College of New York.Her book, "The Victorian Actress in the Novel and on the Stage" begins in the 1830s and ends in the 1910s. It looks at how Victorian novels and plays used the actress, who was a significant figure for the relationship between women and the public sphere, to define their own place within and among genres and in relation to audiences. It traces a cultural history of the actress that led actresses to appropriate the pen themselves by becoming suffragette playwrights and writing new social roles for women, and Elizabeth Robins was one of the women who did that. Elizabeth Robins was a problem solver. Someone who developed new abilities and worked in different modes to bring about change. An American who felt a strong attraction to London and its culture. Guest's Fantasy Dinner Party Guests:Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) George Eliot, her favorite 19th-century novelist and a figure of great import to women writers who followed after her Frances E. W. Harper, 19th-century American suffragist and abolitionist Heidi Schreck, playwright of the current play What the Constitution Means to Me, which follows on Robins’s Votes for Women in it’s focus on the act of women speaking and in it’s use of the drama to emphasize the concerns of women’s bodies Following the recent election in the United States and the election of the first women to serve as Vice President: Kamala Harris. Women who came before her would be interested in speaking with her and she could also benefit from the wisdom of women who had struggled before her. Further Reading: 2 biographies of Robins: Angela V. John, Elizabeth Robins, Staging a Life 1862-1952 Joanne E. Gates’s Elizabeth Robins, 1862-1952: Actress, Novelist, Feminist. Naomi Paxton’s book Stage Rights!: The Actresses’ Franchise League, activism, and politics 1908-58 Episode edited and produced by: Jacob TaylorMusic :The Woman's Party Song. With thanks to Jane Scolieri (performer) and The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley for the copy of the music written for piano by Anita Pollitzer.1908 Sugffragette rally speech, with thanks to the British Library.We'd love you to keep in touch with us. You can find us at:https://www.instagram.com/bluefire_tc/https://twitter.com/bluefire_tchttps://www.facebook.com/bluefiretheatrehttps://www.bluefiretheatre.co.uk/And if you'd like to find out a little more about us and support us in our work, please click here:https://www.patreon.com/bluefiretheatreWe'll be forever grateful.

Randal Brandt, Curator of the California Detective Fiction Collection at the Bancroft Library, interviews Mark about THE DEAD BEAT SCROLL.Links mentioned in the episode:Golden Gate MysteriesA David Dodge CompanionJoe Gores on The Maltese FalconFirst Edition of The Immortal GameChapter Photographs for The Dead Beat ScrollSupport the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/MarkCoggins)

"I don't know anybody who can honestly say there hasn't been somebody in their life that helped them along," said Louise Renne, a lawyer who served as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and as San Francisco City Attorney. "And I try to pay it back by working with young people in public housing here in San Francisco."Renne took part in a panel discussion — "Bay Area Women in Politics" — hosted by the Bancroft Library's Oral History Center in July 2020. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and Shanelle Scales-Preston, who sits on the Pittsburg City Council, also spoke on the panel."I think all of us will say we have to be optimists to survive in these careers," said Schaaf. "It's what gets you out of bed in the morning because we also have to hold tremendous suffering and tragedy in our communities. That is also part of our jobs. But I want to see a world that is equitable and where everyone thrives. And when I talk about equity, I believe that structural racism is one of the biggest barriers to everything good that we want for the world. And that includes getting an actual representative democracy. It's not just about women, but it's also about people of color. It's about anyone who does not fit the dominant identity. And we have to start to reverse engineer those policies, those practices that have been in place forever that are maintaining these obstacles to people getting these opportunities."This discussion was part of the Bay Area Women in Politics Oral History Project, which highlights the work of women leaders in the Bay Area. "We really wanted to think about this project as a way to document the history of our region's political women, from elected officials to activists to campaign staffers to fundraisers," said Amanda Tewes, a historian and interviewer for the Oral History Center who is leading the project. "I think we can all agree that women are often the backbone of America's political work — and we felt it was important to record that."Listen to the discussion and a read a transcript on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Food Series #3 of 4. The Black Panthers are often misrepresented or their significance is minimized in popular thought and opinion. The everyday organizing is often lost and an overemphasis on the Panther’s clashes with law enforcement overshadow the substantial community programs, the Service to the People Programs, offered by the Black Panther Party on the local level. Additionally, the dominant narrative highlights the men of the Panther party, yet women made up 2/3 of the membership and set a community-focused revolutionary agenda. Instead of viewing Black power movements like the Panthers as the antithesis of the non-violent civil rights movement, it is important to recognize that civil rights and Black power movements such as the Black Panthers, both emanate from a centuries-long Black freedom struggle. As former Panther Ericka Huggins states, “We were making history. It wasn’t nice and clean. It was complex.” Get the transcript and complete bibliography at digpodcast.org Select Bibliography Austin, Curtis. Up Against the Wall: Violence in the Making and Unmaking of the Black Panther Party. University of Arkansas Press. 2008. Bloom, Joshua, Waldo E. Martin, Jr. Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party. University of California Press, 2016. Foner, Philip S. ed. The Black Panthers Speak. Lippincott. 1970. Harrington, Michael. The Other America: Poverty in the United States. New York: Macmillan, 1962. Jones, Charles E. , ed. The Black Panther Party (Reconsidered). Black Classic Press. 1998. Katz, Michael B. The Undeserving Poor: America’s Enduring Confrontation with Poverty. 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Levine, Susan. School Lunch Politics: The Surprising History of America’s Favorite Welfare Program. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. Newton, Huey P. Revolutionary Suicide. Penguin Classics. 2009. Orleck, Annelise. Storming Caesar’s Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty. Boston: Beacon Press, 2006. Orleck, Annelise, and Lisa Gayle Hazirjian, eds. The War on Poverty: A New Grassroots History, 1964-1980. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011. Peniel, E.Joseph, ed. The Black Power Movement: Rethinking The Civil Rights-Black Power Era. Routledge. 2006. The Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation. Black Panther Party : Service to the People Programs. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2009. Arinna Hermida. “Mapping the Black Panther Party in Key Cities.” An Oral History with Ericka Huggins, Interviews conducted by Fiona Thompson in 2007, Oral History Center University of California, The Bancroft Library. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join us virtually for a conversation with Robert Hirst about the millions of words Mark Twain wrote but left behind for Hirst and his team to organize. The Mark Twain Project at UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library started with a core collection transferred in 1949 to UC Berkeley by Clara, Mark Twain's sole surviving daughter. For the last four decades, the ever-growing archive of original and photocopied documents, unpublished manuscripts and thousands of letters, as well as the editorial project to create a digital record of everything Mark Twain wrote, have both been under Hirst's direction. That project included publishing Mark Twain's complete autobiography in 2010, 100 years after he died—a century's wait required by Twain's desire to save his heirs from being lynched. Hear a great storyteller tell great stories about one of America's greatest authors. MLF Organizer: George Hammond MLF: Humanities ** This Podcast Contains Explicit Language ** Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest today Julia Flynn Siler is a New York Times best-selling author and journalist. Her new book, The White Devil's Daughters: The Women Who Fought Against Slavery in San Francisco's Chinatown, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in May of 2019. The New York Times Book Review named it an “Editors' Choice.” She is also the author of Lost Kingdom: Hawaii's Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America's First Imperial Adventure and the The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty. She will be at the Miami Book Fair coming up November 17-24. As a veteran correspondent for the Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek magazine, Ms. Siler spent more than two decades in the Europe and the United States, reporting from a dozen countries. She has covered fields as varied as biotechnology, cult wines, puppy breeding, and a princess's quest to restore a Hawaiian palace's lost treasures. A graduate in American Studies at Brown University and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, Ms. Siler began her career as a staff correspondent for BusinessWeek, working in the magazine's Los Angeles and Chicago bureaus. She wrote stories on everything from White Castle “sliders” to the roiling futures markets for the New York Times. By taking classes at night during that time, she earned an MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg Graduate School of Management. In 1993, she was awarded a fellowship to teach business journalism in Prague, where she organized a speaker series at the Center for Independent Journalism, a not-for-profit organization supported in part by the New York Times Foundation. Ms. Siler then served as a London-based staff correspondent for BusinessWeek, where she was a member of BusinessWeek reporting teams that won a National Magazine Award, a Deadline Club award, as well as other honors. As a longtime London-based foreign correspondent, she wrote about family business dynasties, millionaire dons at Oxford and Cambridge, and Virgin founder Richard Branson, among other subjects. Toward the end of her years in London, she joined the Wall Street Journal as its European management correspondent, traveling throughout the region to report stories. During that time, she did post-graduate work in finance at the London Business School. After returning to the U.S., one of the first articles she wrote for the Wall Street Journal was about the turmoil within the Mondavi family's wine empire. It ran as a front-page story in June of 2004. That story led to her book The House of Mondavi, published by Penguin's Gotham Books in 2007. A New York Times bestseller, it was honored as a finalist both for a James Beard Award and a Gerald Loeb Award for distinguished reporting and is now in its twelfth printing. Over the years, Ms. Siler wrote many feature stories for the Wall Street Journal out of its San Francisco bureau, and helped produce WSJ.com videos to accompany some of these stories. Her critically acclaimed second book, Lost Kingdom, was also a New York Times bestseller. Ms. Siler was a 2013 recipient of the Ella Dickey Literacy Award, named in honor of a beloved librarian, and was honored at a ceremony in Missouri in April 2013. In August of 2016, the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded Ms. Flynn Siler a “Public Scholar” grant for 2016-2017 to support her forthcoming book, “The White Devil's Daughters: The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco's Chinatown.” In June of 2017, the Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism announced that Ms. Siler had been awarded a Mayborn Fellowship in Biography to support her new book. She was also named a Logan Nonfiction Fellow at the Carey Institute for Greater Good, where she spent the fall of 2017 completing her manuscript. Ms. Siler is a longtime member of the San Francisco-based writing group North 24thWriters, whose members have published fourteen nonfiction books as well as hundreds of articles and essays in major magazines, newspapers and literary journals. She is also a member of the San Francisco Writer's Grotto. She has taught journalism at the University of London's Birkbeck college and leads nonfiction workshops at the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley as a staff member. She has appeared as a commentator on the BBC, CBS, CNBC, National Public Radio, and elsewhere. She has worked as an on-call producer for KQED's Forum. Her stories and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Oxford Encyclopedia on Food and Drink in America. She served two terms on the alumni board of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and currently serves on the boards of San Francisco-based Litquake Foundation, which produces an annual literary festival and year-round events, and on the board of the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley. She is also in her second term as a member of the Council of the Friends of the Bancroft Library at U.C. Berkeley. She has served for several years as a nonfiction juror for the Commonwealth Club's California Book Awards. She was born in Palo Alto, California in 1960 and she and her family live in Northern California, where they are frequent visitors to their local public libraries.

On October 11, 1923, three brothers — Hugh, Ray and Roy DeAutremont — boarded a Southern Pacific Railroad train called the Gold Special near the Siskiyou Mountains in Oregon. The trio planned to rob the mail car. But instead of making off with their fortune, they killed four people and blew up the mail car and the valuables inside. A huge manhunt followed and authorities called in an up-and-coming forensic scientist and UC Berkeley lecturer and alumnus Edward Oscar Heinrich to help solve what became known as the Last Great Train Robbery. He didn't know that the case would put him on the map as a pioneer in American criminology. And now, nearly 100 years later, Heinrich's collection of crime materials from this case — and thousands of others he worked on throughout his career — are available for research in the Bancroft Library's archives at UC Berkeley. See photos and read the story on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

UC Berkeley alumnus Doug Harnsberger was hiking along California’s scenic John Muir Trail a few years ago when he came across a stone hut at the top of 11,955-foot Muir Pass, inside Kings Canyon National Park. Almost as soon as he returned home to Pennsylvania, he started learning as much as he could about the hut. The effort took him to UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library, where he found the original 1930 blueprint for the building by Henry Gutterson, a 1905 graduate of Berkeley who was commissioned to build the hut by the Sierra Club. Series: "UC Berkeley News" [Humanities] [Show ID: 33980]

UC Berkeley alumnus Doug Harnsberger was hiking along California’s scenic John Muir Trail a few years ago when he came across a stone hut at the top of 11,955-foot Muir Pass, inside Kings Canyon National Park. Almost as soon as he returned home to Pennsylvania, he started learning as much as he could about the hut. The effort took him to UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library, where he found the original 1930 blueprint for the building by Henry Gutterson, a 1905 graduate of Berkeley who was commissioned to build the hut by the Sierra Club. Series: "UC Berkeley News" [Humanities] [Show ID: 33980]

Tyler Deaton's story is one of 23 interviews conducted by Bancroft Library’s Oral History Center at UC Berkeley that explore the national campaign that won federal marriage rights for same-sex couples. More on Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/06/23/freedom-to-marry-oral-history-center-tyler-deaton/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Celebration in San Francisco, 1977; from the SF Examiner Archive, The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley. Dennis Billups joins Eddie Ytuarte with a first person account of the historic disability occupation of the  federal HEW building in 1977.  This protest of the delay of 504 regulations became a precursor to the Americans with Disabilities Act. Billups' history, as well as that of other disability activists, will be on display in the multi-media exhibit,  “Patient No More: People with Disabilities Securing Civil Rights,” which opens at the San Francisco Library next week. “Patient No More” will be on display from June 10 through September 3, 2017.   Also, with us is Fran Osborne, exhibit curator, to highlight the unique aspects of this exhibit and give other presenters hints to make their events more inclusive. This program is streamed live at www.kpfa.org and most past programs are also archived. Earlier Pushing Limits coverage of the “Patient No More” exhibit can be heard here. Hosted and Produced by Eddie Ytuarte. The post Dennis Billups – Patient No More appeared first on KPFA.

In 2014, in partnership with The Bancroft Library at the University of California Berkeley, we launched the NWP Archives Project to ensure preservation and accessibility of NWP organizational records, publications, and resources, including more than 100 oral history interviews from founding Writing Project site directors, scholars, teacher-leaders, and funders. Hear about the archives' grand opening and learn a little NWP history from NWP leaders past and present.

In 2014, in partnership with The Bancroft Library at the University of California Berkeley, we launched the NWP Archives Project to ensure preservation and accessibility of NWP organizational records, publications, and resources, including more than 100 oral history interviews from founding Writing Project site directors, scholars, teacher-leaders, and funders. Hear about the archives' grand opening and learn a little NWP history from NWP leaders past and present.

Barbara Boxer, the longtime US Senator from California and author of "The Art of Tough: Fearlessly Facing Politics and Life," speaks on her biggest battles in Congress, including support for AIDS research, voting rights, equal rights, reproductive rights, clean air and water, parental leave and her opposition to the Iraq war, and reminds her audience that all of these are at risk given the results of the 2016 election. Boxer delivers the inaugural speech of the Barbara Boxer Lecture Series, presented by the Institute of Governmental Studies and the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. Series: "Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley (IGS)" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 32092]

Barbara Boxer, the longtime US Senator from California and author of "The Art of Tough: Fearlessly Facing Politics and Life," speaks on her biggest battles in Congress, including support for AIDS research, voting rights, equal rights, reproductive rights, clean air and water, parental leave and her opposition to the Iraq war, and reminds her audience that all of these are at risk given the results of the 2016 election. Boxer delivers the inaugural speech of the Barbara Boxer Lecture Series, presented by the Institute of Governmental Studies and the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. Series: "Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley (IGS)" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 32092]

Barbara Boxer, the longtime US Senator from California and author of "The Art of Tough: Fearlessly Facing Politics and Life," speaks on her biggest battles in Congress, including support for AIDS research, voting rights, equal rights, reproductive rights, clean air and water, parental leave and her opposition to the Iraq war, and reminds her audience that all of these are at risk given the results of the 2016 election. Boxer delivers the inaugural speech of the Barbara Boxer Lecture Series, presented by the Institute of Governmental Studies and the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. Series: "Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley (IGS)" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 32092]

Barbara Boxer, the longtime US Senator from California and author of "The Art of Tough: Fearlessly Facing Politics and Life," speaks on her biggest battles in Congress, including support for AIDS research, voting rights, equal rights, reproductive rights, clean air and water, parental leave and her opposition to the Iraq war, and reminds her audience that all of these are at risk given the results of the 2016 election. Boxer delivers the inaugural speech of the Barbara Boxer Lecture Series, presented by the Institute of Governmental Studies and the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. Series: "Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley (IGS)" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 32092]

Barbara Boxer, the longtime US Senator from California and author of "The Art of Tough: Fearlessly Facing Politics and Life," speaks on her biggest battles in Congress, including support for AIDS research, voting rights, equal rights, reproductive rights, clean air and water, parental leave and her opposition to the Iraq war, and reminds her audience that all of these are at risk given the results of the 2016 election. Boxer delivers the inaugural speech of the Barbara Boxer Lecture Series, presented by the Institute of Governmental Studies and the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. Series: "Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley (IGS)" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 32092]

Barbara Boxer, the longtime US Senator from California and author of "The Art of Tough: Fearlessly Facing Politics and Life," speaks on her biggest battles in Congress, including support for AIDS research, voting rights, equal rights, reproductive rights, clean air and water, parental leave and her opposition to the Iraq war, and reminds her audience that all of these are at risk given the results of the 2016 election. Boxer delivers the inaugural speech of the Barbara Boxer Lecture Series, presented by the Institute of Governmental Studies and the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. Series: "Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley (IGS)" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 32092]

Barbara Boxer, the longtime US Senator from California and author of "The Art of Tough: Fearlessly Facing Politics and Life," speaks on her biggest battles in Congress, including support for AIDS research, voting rights, equal rights, reproductive rights, clean air and water, parental leave and her opposition to the Iraq war, and reminds her audience that all of these are at risk given the results of the 2016 election. Boxer delivers the inaugural speech of the Barbara Boxer Lecture Series, presented by the Institute of Governmental Studies and the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. Series: "Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley (IGS)" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 32092]

Barbara Boxer, the longtime US Senator from California and author of "The Art of Tough: Fearlessly Facing Politics and Life," speaks on her biggest battles in Congress, including support for AIDS research, voting rights, equal rights, reproductive rights, clean air and water, parental leave and her opposition to the Iraq war, and reminds her audience that all of these are at risk given the results of the 2016 election. Boxer delivers the inaugural speech of the Barbara Boxer Lecture Series, presented by the Institute of Governmental Studies and the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. Series: "Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley (IGS)" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 32092]

Barbara Boxer, the longtime US Senator from California and author of "The Art of Tough: Fearlessly Facing Politics and Life," speaks on her biggest battles in Congress, including support for AIDS research, voting rights, equal rights, reproductive rights, clean air and water, parental leave and her opposition to the Iraq war, and reminds her audience that all of these are at risk given the results of the 2016 election. Boxer delivers the inaugural speech of the Barbara Boxer Lecture Series, presented by the Institute of Governmental Studies and the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. Series: "Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley (IGS)" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 32092]

Barbara Boxer, the longtime US Senator from California and author of "The Art of Tough: Fearlessly Facing Politics and Life," speaks on her biggest battles in Congress, including support for AIDS research, voting rights, equal rights, reproductive rights, clean air and water, parental leave and her opposition to the Iraq war, and reminds her audience that all of these are at risk given the results of the 2016 election. Boxer delivers the inaugural speech of the Barbara Boxer Lecture Series, presented by the Institute of Governmental Studies and the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. Series: "Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley (IGS)" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 32092]

Dr. Jane Goodall is a legend. She is a science hero, a trailblazing researcher who inspires people around the world. In this episode, Jane Goodall shares part of the story of how she went from working as a secretary to becoming the world's leading expert on chimpanzee behavior. In 2004, author and Leakey family biographer Virginia Morrell interviewed Jane Goodall for the Louis Leakey Centennial Oral History Project. This never before heard recording covers the time in Goodall's life from 1957 when she arrived in Nairobi, Kenya, to November 1960 when she made her first groundbreaking discovery, one that changed the way we see chimpanzees as well as the way we define ourselves as humans. Links The Jane Goodall Institute The Leakey Foundation ROHO. The Regional Oral History Office of the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley Virginia Morrell Credits This episode was produced by Meredith Johnson and edited by Audrey Quinn, production help from Schuyler Swenson. Scoring and composition by Henry Nagle. Additional Music from the Blue Dot Sessions and Lee Rosevere. Thanks for listening! If you like our show, please subscribe and give us a rating on iTunes. We're new and reviews really help. We appreciate it a lot! You can support long term studies of primates in the wild by supporting The Leakey Foundation. Sponsors This show is made possible with support from Wells Fargo Bank. We're also sponsored by Adept Word Management, who provides transcripts of our interviews and episodes.

In partnership with City Lights Books, who first published Frank O'Hara's “Lunch Poems” 50 years ago, this special event features readings from a newly expanded edition that also includes communiqués by O'Hara pulled from the City Lights archive housed at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. Participants include: Jayne Gregory, Robert Hass, Owen Hill, Elaine Katzenberger, Evan Klavon, Giovanni Singleton, Julianna Spahr, Joseph Bush and Matthew Zapruder. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 28889]

In partnership with City Lights Books, who first published Frank O’Hara’s “Lunch Poems” 50 years ago, this special event features readings from a newly expanded edition that also includes communiqués by O’Hara pulled from the City Lights archive housed at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. Participants include: Jayne Gregory, Robert Hass, Owen Hill, Elaine Katzenberger, Evan Klavon, Giovanni Singleton, Julianna Spahr, Joseph Bush and Matthew Zapruder. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 28889]

In partnership with City Lights Books, who first published Frank O’Hara’s “Lunch Poems” 50 years ago, this special event features readings from a newly expanded edition that also includes communiqués by O’Hara pulled from the City Lights archive housed at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. Participants include: Jayne Gregory, Robert Hass, Owen Hill, Elaine Katzenberger, Evan Klavon, Giovanni Singleton, Julianna Spahr, Joseph Bush and Matthew Zapruder. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 28889]

In partnership with City Lights Books, who first published Frank O’Hara’s “Lunch Poems” 50 years ago, this special event features readings from a newly expanded edition that also includes communiqués by O’Hara pulled from the City Lights archive housed at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. Participants include: Jayne Gregory, Robert Hass, Owen Hill, Elaine Katzenberger, Evan Klavon, Giovanni Singleton, Julianna Spahr, Joseph Bush and Matthew Zapruder. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 28889]

In partnership with City Lights Books, who first published Frank O'Hara's “Lunch Poems” 50 years ago, this special event features readings from a newly expanded edition that also includes communiqués by O'Hara pulled from the City Lights archive housed at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. Participants include: Jayne Gregory, Robert Hass, Owen Hill, Elaine Katzenberger, Evan Klavon, Giovanni Singleton, Julianna Spahr, Joseph Bush and Matthew Zapruder. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 28889]

In partnership with City Lights Books, who first published Frank O’Hara’s “Lunch Poems” 50 years ago, this special event features readings from a newly expanded edition that also includes communiqués by O’Hara pulled from the City Lights archive housed at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. Participants include: Jayne Gregory, Robert Hass, Owen Hill, Elaine Katzenberger, Evan Klavon, Giovanni Singleton, Julianna Spahr, Joseph Bush and Matthew Zapruder. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 28889]

October 24, 2012 In his new book, Subversives: the FBI’s War on Student Radicals and Reagan’s Rise to Power (2012), journalist Seth Rosenfeld chronicled J. Edgar Hoover’s determination to undermine UC Berkeley’s student protest movements, starting as early as the 1940s. Based on more than 250,000 pages of secret FBI files --which took the author almost three decades to obtain -- and the archival collection at the Bancroft Library, Subversives provides an extraordinary chronicle of the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley, and its lasting impact on politics in California and in the United States. Featured speaker: Seth Rosenfeld, journalist and author of Subversives: the FBI’s War on Student Radicals and Reagan’s Rise to Power

We share one terrific online collection of historical San Francisco images: the Jesse Brown Cook Scrapbooks at the Bancroft Library.

Brenda Hillman delivers a 2006 talk entitled "Cracks in the Oracle Bone: Teaching Certain Contemporary Poems" at the Judith Lee Stronach Memorial Lectures on The Teaching of Poetry at the University of California, Berkeley. Audio courtesy of the Bancroft Library at Berkeley.

Peter Sacks delivers a 2007 talk entitled "'You Only Guide Me by Surprise': Poetry and the Dolphin's Turn" at the Judith Lee Stronach Memorial Lectures on The Teaching of Poetry at the University of California, Berkeley. Audio courtesy of the Bancroft Library at Berkeley.

The Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Oral History Project Over the past three years, the Regional Oral History Office at the University of California, Berkeley, has been conducting interviews on the development of Kaiser Permanente since 1970. This series builds on a previous set of interviews with the founding generation that began in the 1980s, shortly after the death of Dr. Sidney Garfield. To mark the mid-point in this new series of in-depth interviews, the Regional Oral History Office will host a panel discussion, "Managed Care in the 1990s: Politics, Policy, and Oral History Perspectives," that will explore what these interviews have to say about Kaiser Permanente in the changing structure of health care delivery of the 1990s. Panelists will comment on the work done in this series and its relevance to the most important questions currently confronting scholars of the development of health care in the United States. Panelists: Professor Alain Enthoven, Marriner S. Eccles Professor of Public and Private Management, Emeritus, Stanford Graduate School of Business Professor James Robinson, Kaiser Permanente Distinguished Professor of Health Economics, School of Public Health, UC Berkeley Martin Meeker, Ph.D., Academic Specialist, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley  

The Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Oral History Project Over the past three years, the Regional Oral History Office at the University of California, Berkeley, has been conducting interviews on the development of Kaiser Permanente since 1970. This series builds on a previous set of interviews with the founding generation that began in the 1980s, shortly after the death of Dr. Sidney Garfield. To mark the mid-point in this new series of in-depth interviews, the Regional Oral History Office will host a panel discussion, "Managed Care in the 1990s: Politics, Policy, and Oral History Perspectives," that will explore what these interviews have to say about Kaiser Permanente in the changing structure of health care delivery of the 1990s. Panelists will comment on the work done in this series and its relevance to the most important questions currently confronting scholars of the development of health care in the United States. Panelists: Professor Alain Enthoven, Marriner S. Eccles Professor of Public and Private Management, Emeritus, Stanford Graduate School of Business Professor James Robinson, Kaiser Permanente Distinguished Professor of Health Economics, School of Public Health, UC Berkeley Martin Meeker, Ph.D., Academic Specialist, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley  

SERIES KICK-OFF Hosted by Robert Hass and university librarian Thomas C. Leonard, the kickoff features distinguished faculty and staff from a wide range of disciplines introducing and reading a favorite poem. This year’s participants: Gibor Basri (Vice Chancellor, Equity and Inclusion) Michaelyn Burnette (Humanities Librarian) Walter Hood (Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning) Claire Kremen (Environmental Science, Policy & Management), Francine Masiello (Spanish & Portuguese) Linda Norton (Regional Oral History, Bancroft Library), Beth Piatote (Ethnic Studies) Jiwon Shin (East Asian Languages & Cultures) George Smoot (Physics) Tim Zuniga (UCPD)  

SERIES KICK-OFF Hosted by Robert Hass and university librarian Thomas C. Leonard, the kickoff features distinguished faculty and staff from a wide range of disciplines introducing and reading a favorite poem. This year’s participants: Gibor Basri (Vice Chancellor, Equity and Inclusion) Michaelyn Burnette (Humanities Librarian) Walter Hood (Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning) Claire Kremen (Environmental Science, Policy & Management), Francine Masiello (Spanish & Portuguese) Linda Norton (Regional Oral History, Bancroft Library), Beth Piatote (Ethnic Studies) Jiwon Shin (East Asian Languages & Cultures) George Smoot (Physics) Tim Zuniga (UCPD)