Posts tagged Daniela Capistrano

Scene Report (POC Zine Project edition): L.A. Zine Fest 2013

Here are some moments from our first tabling and panel experience as invited guests at L.A. Zine Fest on February 17, 2013:

1. When we arrived at the Ukrainian Cultural Center and were impressed with the space

2. L.A. collaborator Chula Doula posing with flowers before assisting us with POCZP tabling needs (Thanks, Pati!)

Pati Garcia is a Certified Sexological bodyworker/Somatic Sex Educator, self-identifies as genderqueer/fluid two spirit of Peruvian-Mexican descent, loves to dig feet in the earth and throw love into the cosmos. Pati holds space for life unraveling and unwinding as a birth doula. Pati follows only the spirit led path and refuses to compromise pleasure for any reason at all. Radical feminist doula bodyworker, workshop facilitator. Wanna see your cervix?? Ask her how.

3. When Cristy C. Road, Suzy X, Chula Doula and Mariam Bastani all tabled together at the same time <3

Osa Atoe (Shotgun Seamstress) isn’t in this shot because she was reading during the Mend My Dress Press panel. Tomas Moniz (Rad Dad) was tabling elsewhere but joined us for the POCZP minutes after this photo was taken. POCZP founder Daniela was taking photos with her weird camera, which she will be replacing (sorry for the fuzz y’all).

Here is what Tomas had to say about his first experience collaborating with POCZP at an event:

Two and half hours is pushing it for a bad Hollywood movie; so when I realized the POC Zine Project workshop at this year’s L.A. Zine Fest lasted that long and the crowed remained attentive, invested, engaged throughout all six presentations, I was shocked.  But this fact demonstrates exactly how vital and important the event was!

I’ve attend and participated in many readings, but this one was special; this one was with people who have inspired me for years, Cristy C. Road and Mariam from MRR, as well as people who’s work is some of the best stuff out there today, Suzy X’s Malcriada and Osa Atoe’s Shotgun Seamstress; I also got the chance to thank the founder of the POC Zine Project organizer, Daniela, for keeping alive some of the zines that inspired me as I entered my own critical consciousness and keeping these important resources available for those who come after us.

4. Getting to know our tabling neighbors, such as Thi Bui and her son (who is also an artist!)

Thi Bui was born in Saigon, raised in California and schooled in New York. She teaches high school and has a little boy and a husband. She have been hard at work, writing and drawing a graphic novel called THE BEST WE COULD DO. It is a 15-chapter immigration epic about her parents, their place in history, and her search for her place in her family.

5. When Mariam and other folks from Maximumrocknroll joined the POCZP table with more issues featuring punks and activists of color

POCZP founder Daniela Capistrano (L) and Mariam Bastani (R)

Maximumrocknroll is a widely distributed monthly fanzine dedicated to supporting the underground punk rock scene. MRR’s 25-year plus history and large, obsessed all-volunteer staff has made its punk rock coverage the most consistently up-to-date and reliable around. Subscribe here or purchase individual issues here.

6. Quese IMC participating during our panel and speaking about #IdleNoMore (thanks again, Quese IMC! xoxoxo)

Quese IMC had this to say immediately after the event:

I had a really good time. I enjoyed myself. Was good for me to see a different perspective and meet some cool people. Look forward to hearing from you and definitely keep me updated what you have in mind for the tour…

We are in the process of figuring out how Quese IMC can join us during the 2013 Race Riot! Tour to help share information about #IdleNoMore actions in the Canada, U.S., and around the world. Stay tuned for updates …

7. When our panel at the Moth Theatre quickly became over capacity, and we had to scramble to find additional seating/make space (all great problems to have!)

 Osa Atoe reading at L.A. Zine Fest

Suzy X reading at L.A. Zine Fest (C) while Osa (L) and Mariam (R) observe

This was Suzy’s second time reading as part of a POCZP event. Osa’s commentary afterward? “Suzy is hilarious.” We agree! Check out her latest zine, Malcriada. Suzy will also be joining us next month for Chicago Zine Fest, woo! <3

Here is what Suzy had to say about her time with POCZP at L.A. Zine Fest:

I was so honored to join the POC Zine Project last week at LA Zinefest! Our panel on Sunday afternoon brought up a lot of feelings for me, as the new girl in a scene of bad-ass POC in zines. It’s really mind-blowing how long it took for someone to finally initiate a project like this, a project that centers the voices of people of color in DIY publishing. I discussed my experience— a baby feminist living in a conservative household in the South, without access to any zines, much less zines by POC, until I attended college. And after hearing all these wonderful folks speak, I felt terribly late to the party, because they had been going at it for years! And doing a damn good job of it, too.

I’m incredibly thankful for the initiative Daniela has taken in bringing us all together. But in going forward, I think a conversation should happen in which we discuss access to those who don’t belong to punk scenes or those who don’t live in urban or densely-populated areas. This project was started to shed light on the history of POC in zines; but I am interested in working on ways to make this history available and accessible to more people. This could mean partnering up with existing distros or starting one by and for POC! Whatever works you know? And I’m excited to continue these conversations during the zine tour in Fall 2013.

Suzy X was delighted to find out after sending this recap that POCZP has been engaging in this conversation with folks for years. The POC Zinester & Ally National Conference will take place in the midwest in late 2014 and POCZP’s primary zine partner, SlushPilePress, is located in a remote area of Eugene, Oregon. Our poverty zine partner Carey Fuller is based in Kent, WA, which is also an undeserved area.

COMMUNITY: If you are located in the midwest and/or rural areas without much support for independent publishers, email poczineproject@gmail.com we can discuss ways to partner. <3

Just one section of our over capacity audience - it was so great to meet many of the attendees afterward!

 Cristy C. Road reading at L.A. Zine Fest

8. Reconnecting with POCZP West Coast collaborators like Liz Mayorga

Chula Doula (L) and Liz Mayorga (R) at dinner after L.A. Zine Fest

Liz  is a writer / illustrator from Southeast LA.  She grew up watching old, Black and White, Mexican films and selling burritos with her family.  The films were her inspiration.  The tacos and burritos paid for college.  She used to work with teenagers, and they taught her what it means to be brave.  Their energy and fearlessness inspired her to write and draw for herself, but she ends up creating for them too. 

Liz is now an MFA Writing Student at CCA, where she writes both fiction and nonfiction, milks the Illustration department for all they’re worth, and experiences an existential crisis every day.  Despite the hard work and many sleepless nights, she is extremely grateful to read, write, and draw. She thanks you for your support.

Liz is helping us with tour fundraiser events on the West Coast between now and October. If you’re interested in supporting POCZP West Coast initiatives, send us a message: poczineproject@gmail.com.

9. Helping more folks discover zines by people of color

We met so many rad people at L.A. Zine Fest and will be reaching out to everyone who signed our mailing list in the coming weeks. <3

10. Meeting (in person!) & collaborating with more inspiring zinesters of color like Tomas Moniz 

Tomas Moniz (L) and Suzy X (R) at the POC Zine Project table at L.A. Zine Fest on February 17, 2013

Tomas Moniz is the founder, editor, and a writer for the award winning zine Rad Dad. Looking for radical parenting community, he created Rad Dad to provide the space for parents (particularly fathers) to share, commiserate and plan with each other, and to support each other in challenging patriarchy one diaper at a time. As China Martens has said, “Tomas has been the most vocal voice within zines, trying to start and keep a discussion within this aspect of radical politics and parenthood.” His writing has been included in many zines about parenting as well as in the books My Mother Wears Combat Boots and Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind.

This event marks the first time Tomas participated in a POCZP panel. We’re looking forward to connecting with him at Chicago Zine Fest next month and discussing ongoing collaborations!

A HUGE thank you to L.A. Zine Fest organizers Meredith Wallace and  Rhea Tepplim for all their help, as well as to everyone who volunteered at the fest. <3

Our panel was recorded and we are in the process of tracking down video so we can share it with you all.

COMMUNITY: Did we meet you in person at L.A. Zine Fest? Tell us about your experience exploring our tabling area or what you thought about our panel discussion. Submit your thoughts here or email poczineproject@gmail.com (all voices welcome, including white folks <3). 

We’ll update this recap with more reactions and photos from POCZP members and L.A. Zine Fest attendees in the coming days.

Meet POCZP’s first Legacy Series intern: Itoro Udofia!

NAME: Itoro Udofia

ROLE: First dedicated intern for the POC Zine Project’s Legacy Series

REGION: West Coast, USA

COMMUNITY: Join us in welcoming Itoro! You’ll be seeing her contributions manifest on this Tumblr and in other digital and physical spaces very soon …. <3

Bio: Itoro is a first generation writer, artist, and educator of Nigerian origin living in the Bay Area. She develops programs for youth of color (Youth Programs Associate at the Museum of the African Diaspora) where they have a space to honor their histories and thrive. You can find her writings on Your World News, People of Color Organize, Rain and Thunder: A Radical Feminist Journal, Womanist Musings, and her own blog Thoughts of my Mind. Her writings focus on the intersections and dynamics of race, class, gender, power, survival/healing and education.

She also teaches an African History course and when she is not doing that, she works closely with a community organization dear to her heart, working to abolish the school to prison pipeline and hearing the youth speak their truth to move to action. She is happy to be a Bay Area resident and feels like here, she has found a bit of peace and a bit of home!

Itoro’s excited to be an intern with the POC Zine Project because it is a collective that uplifts and cares about what people of color have to say and acknowledges what they have always said.

Some texts that furthered her political consciousness and commitment to uplifting the voices of POC and their struggles are The Revolution Starts at Home, This Bridge Called My Back and Steve Biko’s I Write What I Like: Selected Writings. All these zines and texts named what it means to speak out from the margins and hold to ones principle in building a world that includes us all, and calls for a life of love and continued struggle in ALL our spaces, seen and unseen. Moreover, with many people coming out from the margins, she did not feel alone.

Ultimately, Itoro hopes to be a part of a larger community committed to making our written word available, accessible and visible. Other perks to the internship are gaining more knowledge and organizing with radical zinesters. As an intern, she hopes to further her knowledge about zine culture and help get our Voices out. She is excited and ready to begin this journey and is happy to call the POC Zine Project her media home.

COMMUNITY: Learn more about POCZP internship & volunteer opportunities here. We are still accepting applications for the Summer and Fall sessions. 

IN ITORO’S OWN WORDS

Here are some excerpt from her application that are important to share:

Zine culture, specifically the material production of our knowledge is important to me because our voices are often co-opted, misused or completely erased in the literary canon. I have experienced this dangerous and painful trend most profoundly as an educator within the context of radical and progressive education. Save for bell hooks, Sonia nieto, Michele Foster and a few other people of color directly explaining the intricacies of power and privilege as a teacher of color, outlining a liberatory pedagogy through navigating a hostile terrain and offering something invaluable to the field through articulating underlying race, class and gender dynamics, it was difficult to fully relate to radical literature. I found that much of its thought and analysis was filtered through a white liberal/radical context. Even the class analysis was lacking because the white elephant in the room, white supremacy, was not directly dealt with. These power dynamics alone, the dynamics of who gets listened to, who controls the written word, who controls the publishing house, the way information gets told is what fuels my commitment to writing and working with people of color to have complete autonomy over their material.

… The POC Zine project is necessary at this particular time where knowledge and overall experiences are actively ignored.  Centering people of color’s material contributions as a source of  is important, and is a part of honoring a larger history of people who kept going in spite of these hurdles.  

SOME OF ITORO’S WRITING

In a Quiet Place, A Radical Profeminist (Fall 2012)  

In a Quiet Place, The Black Feminist Manifesto (Fall 2012)

In a Quiet Place, Your World News (Fall 2012)  

Missy Anne’s on the lookout for me, Your World News (Summer 2012)  

And When You Leave, Take your Pictures with you, Your World News (Spring 2012) 

Black Power, Leadership and Privilege, Your World News (Winter 2012)

Shedding the Tears, Looking Back, Moving Forward, People of Color Organize (Winter 2012) 

Conversations with a Student Teacher of Color, Womanist Musings (Fall 2010) 

ABOUT THE LEGACY SERIES

Kicking off with FIRE!!, POC Zine Project will make zines by people of color created from the 1700s-1990s available to read and share.

Every Friday (Editor’s note: date pushed to February), you will find a legacy zine by a person of color on poczineproject.tumblr.com. We will share more details in 2013.

WHY WE ARE FOCUSING ON LEGACY ZINES

People of color in the U.S. have produced independent publications (zines) for decades. Many of these zines were political in nature, creating cracks in the lens of white supremacy that shaped (and continues to inform) popular culture and legislation.

These zines were new maps to our liberation, countering the negative propaganda of what people of color looked like, thought and were capable of achieving.

We want the world to know about these legacy zines, so we are going to archive and share them to the best of our ability.

We look forward to partnering with distros, academic spaces, libraries, anti-authoritarian collectives, literary journals, bloggers and more to share the Legacy Series.

“NEW” ZINESTERS: We will still share information about new and upcoming zines by people of color :) Please continue to submit your zines to the archive.

ABOUT THE RACE RIOT! TOUR

POC Zine Project held its first Race Riot! Tour in 2012, producing 20 events in 14 cities, which included speaking engagements at six universities. Click here to view photos from the POC Zine Project: 2012 Race Riot! Tour tour finale at Death By Audio in Brooklyn and access all the tour stop recaps.

We will be taking the Race Riot! Tour through 14 more cities in 2013. Stay tuned!

SUPPORT POC ZINE PROJECT

If everyone in our community gave $1, we would more than meet our fundraising goal for 2013. If you have it to spare, we appreciate your support. All funds go to our 2013 tour, the Legacy Series and the poverty zine series.

DONATE link via PayPal: http://bit.ly/SHdmyh

You can also send well-concealed cash or a check! Email daniela@dcapmedia.com for details or if you have questions.

Info about the poverty zine series: http://bit.ly/RLVTVt

RELEASE: Barnard Library Donation Statement

In the summer of 2012, POC Zine Project partnered with Mimi Thi Nguyen to facilitate her donation of over 60 poc zines created in the 1990s to NYU’s Fales Library and the Barnard Zine Library. 

Here is Mimi/POCZP’s Barnard donation statement in its entirety. Click here for the Barnard blog post that includes donation details.

BARNARD LIBRARY DONATION STATEMENT

The Mimi Thi Nguyen Collection in Collaboration with the POC Zine Project

January 17, 2013

By Mimi Thi Nguyen

I first met Jenna Freedman from the Barnard Zine Library at event called, “Meet Me At the Race Riot: People of Color in Zines from 1990 to Today,” in November 2011. Freedman had contacted me in spring of that year with an open invitation to speak at the Barnard Zine Library if I ever found myself in New York City, after noting that I spoke about the Race Riot compilation zines at both the Chicago Zine Fest and the Midwest Zine Fest.

Having been invited to present my scholarship at the University of Pennsylvania later that fall, I proposed a side trip to come to Barnard. In short order, Freedman contacted Kate Wadkins of the For the Birds Feminist Collective and Daniela Capistrano of the POC Zine Project and organized the “Meet Me At the Race Riot” event, featuring a truly amazing panel of women of color zine writers – and thus Freedman is key to those efforts that laid the groundwork for the POC Zine Project speakers’ bureau.

That this should be so is no surprise, since Freedman in her position as head archivist for the Barnard Zine Library has made it the collection’s mission to focus upon zines by women of color as an important but much under-observed contribution to the story of contemporary zine culture in general, and to riot grrrl as feminist movement in particular.

It is with great pleasure that I collaborate now with Daniela Capistrano to donate these zines to the Barnard Zine Library. As the mission statement for POC Zine Project states, the archive and access to it are central: “POC Zine Project’s mission is to makes ALL zines by POC (People of Color) easy to find, share and distribute. We are an experiment in activism and community through materiality.”

With this mission statement in mind, I wish to address two issues that concern us —myself, and Capistrano at the POC Zine Project— in pursuing these archival collaborations: For the first, we argue that the archive is not just a place for study, but must be itself an object of it.

What is in the archive, and how did it get there?

What are the criteria for assembling, organizing and presenting materials?

Who selects and collects, shapes and donates their stories to an archive?

What is not there?

How do these materials and absences produce knowledges, including norms and teleologies?

It is stating the obvious to observe that no archive is an authoritative source for grasping a record of the past; we know from postcolonial studies in which the archive is demonstrably an artifact of colonial frames that the story the archive –any archive— tells is provisional, partial.

This concern then leads us to the second, focused on feminist historiography –how do we tell the story of feminist movement and teleology, and the place of women of color?

As the narrow scope of liberal multiculturalism has by now taught us, inclusion and incorporation might be made to cover over more troubling queries about how women of color are included, incorporated, or otherwise made visible. I am thinking of feminist archives or retrospectives that too often “hold a place” for women of color to say their piece, but in such a way that contains their critique and segregates it from the story of the movement’s contribution.

We can see this logic operating in retrospectives of riot grrrl in which the story of race is contained as a chapter, or a part of a chapter, in its history, when it appears at all. As I have said elsewhere, the archive is a political and cultural meaning making machine for the passage of objects into what Michel Foucault calls knowledge’s field of control and power’s sphere of intervention, and for “minor” objects in particular, we know well how troublesome such a passage might be.

At the same time, myself and Daniela here wish to posit another historiographical gesture. That is, what if we refuse the emplottment of absence and subsequent redemption-through-presence that would render women of color as mere addition or supplement to the archives?

What if the intervention becomes the story to tell about them? This is the story, we believe, that the Barnard Zine Library aims to tell.

In that spirit, the donations made from my collection in collaboration with the POC Zine Project and in conversation with Jenna Freedman at the Barnard Zine Library are both a critique (broadly construed) and an alternate chronicle taking up questions about race and coloniality that cut across assumed feminist histories, investments and teleologies.[1]

These selections from my collection point to not a side story in riot grrrl movement or girls’ expressive cultures, but the story of encounter and contest, exchange and challenge – denoting not the singularity of feminist movement, but its slide by other feminisms, fracturing and multiplying into other worlds.

Again, as I have said elsewhere (and repeatedly on the first POC Zine Project/Race Riot! Tour in 2012), those other histories of people of color —here represented in the materials we donate together— are not an interruption into a singular scene or movement but the practice of another, co-present scene or movement that conversed and collided with the already-known story, but with alternate investments and forms of critique. These other stories of riot grrrl in particular and also punk at large unfolding enact historical and theoretical provocations with which we have yet to reckon.[2]

[1] I am grateful to my graduate research assistant Ariana Ruiz for the hours she put in copying and creating an inventory for the zines.

[2] Some of the material adapted here for this statement comes from Mimi Thi Nguyen, “Afterward,” in Punkademics: The Basement Show in the Ivory Tower, edited by Zack Furness, New York: Minor Compositions/Autonomedia, 2012, 217-223; and Mimi Thi Nguyen, “Riot Grrrl, Race, and Revival,” in Women & Performance special issue “Punk Anteriors,” edited by Elizabeth Stinson and Fiona I.B. Ngô, 22:2-3 (July-November 2012); 173-196. 

THANKS, JENNA <3

- Jenna Freedman

————————

Editor’s note: If you are interested in accessing digital copies of any of these zines, send us a message.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Our 3-year anniversary is January 20 + we need your help!

Community,

On January 20, 2010, I created the @poczineproject Twitter account and organized a couple of events. That was the start of an experiment in activism and community through materiality that grew into last year’s 14-city Race Riot! tour and the developing Legacy Series.

POCZP is still a 100% DIY, volunteer operation. We are finally at a stage where we can begin collaborating with interns. We are evaluating funding models aligned with our core values and discussing what sustainability for the project will look like after 2013. 

It’s pretty incredible how quickly time can fly when you’re pouring your heart and soul into something you believe in. It doesn’t feel like three years — more like the blink of an eye. And there’s still so much more to be done.

So here’s what we’re asking:

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: BE INCLUDED IN OUR 2012 RACE RIOT! TOUR ZINE

We want to hear from you! Tell us what you think about the POC Zine Project (Submit here or to daniela@dcapmedia.com).

What about the project speaks to you?

What would you like to see us do in the future? 

If you attended one of our events, describe your experience.

If any of the touring members inspire you in some way, share your experience.

These are just some topics you can write about, but we want to leave it open. 

DEADLINE: February 28, 2013

MORE WAYS TO HELP

1) Support the 2013 Race Riot! tour by contacting us here (or at daniela@dcapmedia.com) and let us know if you’re interested in helping us organize a tour date in your town. We will be traveling through the Southwest (starting in Atlanta) and up the West Coast (ending in Seattle). Final dates TBA soon.

2) Be an intern and/or volunteer. We can offer school credit and accept applications from people who aren’t presently in school. Telecommuting options are available.

3) Make a donation and support our efforts. All funds go toward upcoming event costs and our original zine series. DONATE link via PayPal: http://bit.ly/SHdmyh

Thank you, to all of you who have messaged us in different ways over the years with your zine submissions, questions and offers of support.

A huge thank you to those who have donated their time and resources in both digital and physical realms. You know who you are.

Love and Solidarity,

Daniela

Founder, POC Zine Project