Writing Portfolio
ANAKA’S Angel Music: Alchemizing Spiritual Experiences Into Indigenous Resistance
Story by Gabriela Rodriguez for Sunkissed Media
AnAkA is reclaming her Indigenous wisdom as a form of artistic resistance to colonization through musical experimentation with sounds inspired by her spiritual experiences.
AnAkA is a multimedia storyteller archiving global Indigenous cultures through film, photography, dance, healing arts, and more recently, the production of Angel Music which has resulted in Angel Music EP and Angel Music Remix EP. These projects alchemize sounds she’s experienced in meditative journeys to and from the spiritual dimension.
On a rainy night in Los Angeles, AnAkA and her creative team head to an underground parking structure to dance and film the visuals she conceptualized for the song, “BLU NOISE (LVDF REMIX)”.
A cool gray basement envelops them and lightly flooded cement floors catch a consistent drip of rainwater, creating a muted, reflective backdrop for the electric blue in her braids, layered jean outfit and backup dancer’s masks.
Occasionally sticking her tongue out and rolling her eyes back, she flows with backup dancers LVDF and Justin Conte for an interpretive representation of what she describes to be a cathartic release inspired by both metal music and Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction and change.
“I’m gonna bring out this uncomfortability that I’ve been told to contain as a woman,” she says. “Through this song’s production, I release that containment.”
Under an upbringing highly influenced by the American educational climate that systemically denies the multifaceted history and presence of Native American culture, she reached a turning point and committed her musical career to centering the essence of her Indigenous Native American, Celtic, and West African lineages.
“Angel Music is the source energy of my ancestry culminated into mantras that affirm the wisdom that has been severed by colonization,” she says over a phone interview, while traveling in London to perform this intention throughout Europe. “Colonization is a regime that suppresses our true emotions.”
“This music is an offering for people to use as a tool to tap into their memory and can be used as meditation music and ancestral frequency medicine regardless of cultural identity,” she says.
Enticing body movement, emotional release, and a deeper awareness through meditative music is amongst her many approaches to healing, whilst also being an herbalist and documentarian of present-day Indigenous rituals.
“Healing is seen as a soft and sensual thing,” she reflects, “Angel Music is my way of getting into the void and expressing myself freely without fear.”
Collective of Immigrant Artists Become Recipients of Northern Beaches Council Arts & Creativity Grant
Story by Gabriela Rodriguez for The Sydney Morning Herald
After 6 years of struggling with little to no funding, a group of migrant artists who formed B-Side Creative Studios have been poised for a grant by the Northern Beaches Council in Sydney, Australia.
The grant would fund an expansion of studio space, allowing for more desks and small studios at B-Side. Director of B-Side Creative Miguel Gonzales said they would offer the expansion of space to marginalized groups to use at no cost.
The multi-use space in Northern Beaches was launched by immigrant artists from diverse ethnic backgrounds who united over a shared goal to diversify the local art scene.
“As an immigrant artist here in Australia, you don’t get noticed. We are always looking for ways to build each other up,” Gonzales said. A migrant from Venezuela, Gonzales came to Sydney to provide his 4-year-old daughter with a safer environment, and to start a new path as an artist. Gonzales said he was consistently shunned from many local mainstream art galleries.
Illustrator Kenneth Chu, from China, said his art pieces were also often turned away from recognized galleries in Sydney. “Whenever I display Chinese characters, or even the language, people don’t understand. They don’t accept the culture,” Chu said.
The group of artists have stayed persistent in showcasing their art — one of B-Side’s current projects involves an exhibition of street art that is passed by thousands of people daily.
“Because we don’t have a lot of references to street art [in Northern Beaches], people think of it as graffiti,” Director of B-Side Creative Miguel Gonzales said. “With this project we are going to show people what street art is all about,” Gonzales said. “We decided to collaborate with a local charity; part of the profits from this exhibition will go towards the Burdekin Association.”
The non profit organization in Northern Sydney aims to prevent young people from becoming homeless.
“When the council approached us with the grant opportunity, I knew right away that we would use it to help minority groups that are in similar situations we were in when we arrived to Australia,” Gonzales said.
“I believe that by engaging with organizations and slowly shifting society we can, as artists, create change.”
Demystifying MDMA in the Pursuit of Harm Reduction
Story by Gabriela Rodriguez for Users News
A global resurgence of MDMA availability has resulted in a rising call for pill-testing in Australia, a proposed harm reduction method to identify lethal ingredients in drugs.
Although Australia is the highest per capita consumer of MDMA’s sister drug ecstacy, according to the global drug survey, the Department of Health has yet to legalize the procedure that allows medical professionals in addition to spectroscopy pill testing equipment to detect the contents of illicit drugs.
This has stirred commentary amongst festival patrons — after calls for illicit drug testing at festivals rose following the death of Jacob Langford, 22, at Rainbow Serpent Festival in Victoria last month, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews told ABC News the death would not trigger a reversal of the government's opposition to on-site testing of illegal substances.
The Greens and the Sex Party have showed their support for pill testing in the past, along with several medical experts who advocate for drug law reform. Greens NSW MP and Drugs & Harm Minimisation spokesperson Dr. Mehreen Faruqi released a statement early last year stating, “the Canberra Declaration, which came out of the Parliamentary Drug Summit, shows clear support for a trial of pill testing, or drug checking, at music festivals and other events.”
Meanwhile Australian Federal Police continues to operate drug detection services this festival season, per usual. In a police statement released in preparation for Sydney’s electronic music festival Listen Out last October, Supt McCarthy said, “a significant contingent and overt and covert police will be patrolling the festival, including drug-detection dogs, so I urge everyone to behave responsibly. Those who try to bring illegal drugs into the festival can expect to be caught and dealt with swiftly by police.”
As promised, a heavy police presence lined the festival’s entrance gate in efforts to reduce its permeability to illicit drugs. However, punters and sellers were determined to bypass these efforts. Post-festival police reports stated that three admissions to the hospital were made in relation to suspected overdose at Listen Out.
Psychologist from the Ted Noffs Foundation Kieran Palmer says detection dogs are an expensive failure. “It doesn’t seem to give us much change. It doesn’t change the amount of people doing it or coming to harm with that drug use.” An experienced advocate for drug harm reduction, Palmer is confident that the current methods of reducing drug activity can be dangerous.
Popular techniques to get drugs into festivals don’t always have successful results. Some festival goers hide illicit drugs in body cavities, risking a quick overdose; others have consumed multiple pills at once before entering the gates to avoid police confrontation, according to a seller from Brisbane who chose to remain anonymous.
In 2009, Gemma Thoms, 17, died overnight after she reportedly panicked and swallowed three ecstasy tablets to avoid being detected by dogs at Big Day Out, a festival which was held in Perth’s 36-degree heat.
High temperatures, dehydration, overhydration, and the custom of combining ecstacy with other drugs and alcohol make ecstacy more dangerous, while these factors are commonly found at festivals. Australian Intelligence Commissions’s 2014 Illicit Drug Data reports “fatal toxicity is low, but documented causes of death include: hyperthermia, cardiac arrhythmia, convulsions, stroke and liver necrosis. In high doses MDMA can interfere with the body’s ability to regulate temperature and can lead to hyperthermia, which can result in liver, kidney or cardiovascular failure and death.”
At Sydney’s annual festival, Harbourlife, Georgina Bartter,19, collapsed and later died from multiple organ failure. She reportedly had taken one and a half pills of ecstacy, less than the Global Drug Survey 2016’s reported Australian average of 2.1 ecstacy tablets per session. Double dropping, a popular habit amongst partiers has Australia at the top of the global charts for amount of Ecastacy pills taken at once on average.
Founder of Unharm Australia Will Tregoning says “The generally accepted effective dose of MDMA is 1 milligram per kilogram of body weight. A pill that is about 80-120 mg would be about appropriate given that range.” The Global Drug Survey 2016 reports that in parts of Europe the average dose of MDMA is now 100 - 150mg per pill. Pills containing 3 times the effective dose have been reported.
“Taking too much has never been so easy,” the Global Drug Survey 2016 states, “Better quality drugs need better quality drugs education,” it reads. Palmer affirms pill testing would provide people with the education they need about the contents of their pills, “It’s not just a testing of the substance, but the ability for people to talk to experts.” Palmer refers to a survey conducted by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), in which a majority of drug takers polled said that upon receiving information about dangerous contents in their ecstacy pill, they would change their plans or behavior in regards to taking that pill.
Tregoning says information about the contents of illicit pills would be beneficial because it would occur in real-time, as opposed to delayed information that is released after a drug seizure, often times, days after the festival. It would also allow for a larger scale of drugs analyzed. “The drugs that are seized during an arrest are not always typical of the drugs circulating the festival,” he said.
According to data by the EMCDDA, over the last 5 years, substances that have no history of human use have increasingly appeared in the ecstacy drug market. The Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence’s Illicit Drug Report 1999–2000 reads, “in Australia, analysis of seized tablets, in particular those manufactured locally, have revealed that most tablets contain little or no MDMA and are likely to contain other compounds, such as ketamine or PMA.” Last year, 201 new substances were found on the European drug market, according to the EMCDDA.
“Manufacturers produce molecules that are similar to the ones banned in the country they’re exporting them to.” Tregoning explains legal loopholes that allow for unrecognized substances, “people don’t know how to manage these substances because they don’t even know what they are, adding another level of ambiguity.”
An Australian MDMA dealer of 6 years, who chose to remain anonymous, said he uses his senses to test the MDMA he deals to most of his friends. He buys it in crystal rock form, grinds the rock into powder, weighs one tenth of a gram and places the measurement into a tiny capsule meanwhile his cellphone constantly buzzes with requests for caps. “You can tell by the transparency and rock crystal patterns if it’s pure,” he said. But regardless of his diligent efforts to deal pure
MDMA, social policy expert Tregoning says these at-home inspections are not informed enough.
Tregoning says even pill testing kits can be misleading. He demonstrates a do-it-yourself pill testing kit in his office in Sydney. The kit can identify the presence of ecstasy-like substances (MDMA, MDA, MDE), but cannot differentiate between them nor tell how much of these substances a pill contains. It can also identify the presence of some non-ecstasy substances and the absence of ecstasy. “There are chemicals which do not cause a reaction with the ecstasy-testing kits,” he says, “just because a pill tests positive for an ecstasy-like substance, this does not mean that it is pure.” He insists that pill testing would demystify word-of-mouth information about the contents of pills.
A 2013 poll conducted by the Australian National Council on Drugs resulted in more than 82 percent of 2,300 Australians showing support for the testing of illicit drugs at festivals, but legal influence has hindered the movement. Regardless of its’ recorded success in European countries, former New South Wales Premiere Mike Baird slammed the discussion while in office last year.
“There is a very safe way to go about pills and that is to not take them,” he said. “{Our support for pill testing] won’t be happening in New South Wales.”
Trenoning responds to these decisions by addressing, “We always knew there would be opposition to it. Conversations about these issues can be started quickly, but attitudes and stigmas towards these things take a bit longer to change; drug policy happens very slowly.”
Subway Proposal Divides North Beach
Story by Gabriela Rodriguez for XPress News
North Beach merchants and residents have conflicting reactions as the Central Subway Project inches closer to their neighborhood.
The link between North Beach, an appealing tourist attraction, and downtown is expected by some to bring profit into the village-like community and help combat gentrification. For others, it is an expensive alteration to the well-preserved historic neighborhood.
Small businesses compose the backbone of North Beach’s economy, and in recent years, gentrification has begun affecting one of the most unchanged communities in San Francisco. According to SFMTA project manager Betty Chau, the economy would benefit from new traffic to the area.
The Central Subway, currently in its second phase of construction, “will extend the T Third Line from the 4th Street Caltrain Station to Chinatown, providing a direct, rapid transit link from the Bayshore and Mission Bay areas to South of Market, Union Square and downtown,” according to the Central Subway blog. A third phase of construction has already been set as a goal by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, and would extend the route to a possible station in North Beach’s Washington Square Park and an ending point in Fisherman’s Wharf.
“As a starting point for the concept study, a fourth assumption should be that a station will be constructed in the Washington Square area that will be identified as a “North Beach” station,” according to the T-Third Phase 3 concept study analyzing the third phase plans.
“The extension into North Beach is currently just a glimpse in the eye,” Central Subway project manager and contract administrator Patricia Parker said. “We need a lot of funding and we would have to be the ones to go out there and get it ourselves. Finding the grants and funding for something this big has been our biggest obstacle,” she said.
The Central Subway Project has cost $1.578 billion and was funded by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), the State of California, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority and the City and County of San Francisco, according to a Central Subway funding and budget statement.
“SFMTA does as much as possible to keep public transportation costs to a minimum for low income families,” Contract administrator Parker says, “the subway will stay affordable to riders.”
Dozens of concerned citizens have taken action to halt the progress into North Beach. Groups such as North Beach Neighbors and No North Beach Dig have come together with a strong opposition to the construction of the subway.
In 2013, a lawsuit was filed against the Federal Transit Administration; its administrator, Leslie Rogers; and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency alleging that “the SFMTA changed its plans for removing the two boring machines at the Pagoda Palace site without properly considering the impact on nearby historic properties,” according to Michael Cabanatuan in his article ‘From North Beach, a lawsuit over the Central Subway’ for SFGate.
Parker said the deconstruction of the theatre was necessary to lift two boring machines and use them to excavate the tunnel route through South of Market, 4th Street and Stockton Street through Union Square, Chinatown and North Beach for the Central Subway’s second phase of construction.
“I understand many people may have wanted to keep the Pagoda Theatre because it was unique, but over the years I don’t think anyone is mourning it now,” Parker said. “It was old, but it wasn’t actually historic.”
An application process has to be approved by city planners in order for a site to be considered as a historic landmark. According to Preservation Bulletin No. 10, the Pagoda Theatre was not historic, and North Beach is not listed as an approved historic and conservation district, except for the area defined as the “area generally bound by Greenwich Street to the north, the Embarcadero to the east, Montgomery Street to the west and Broadway to the south,” which would not be affected by construction of the T-Third line.
But for citizens, merchants, and visitors in North Beach, historic criteria is not what determines their appreciation for the “Little Italy” of San Francisco. The Central Subway Project would be an alteration to the bustling community regardless.
“Integration with the regional rail system is long overdue in this location,” Urban Design Policy Director Benjamin Grant from says, “this is about upgrading service for existing transit-dependent, often low-income communities, especially in Chinatown, who have to rely on local bus service. There’s no doubt it will be well-used, and it has a strong logic in connecting the center of the city.
The project has been a balancing act between accommodating citizens, their communities, and altering the city’s transit system for a modernized future.
“We have taken citizens into consideration,” Parker claims, “If we did things the contractor’s way, it would be different.”
San Francisco Celebrity Tailor Speaks on Faced Challenges Amidst Success
Story by Gabriela Rodriguez for XPress News
Fabric swatches, Australian Merino wool and horse hide lay around on small wooden tables; wooden shoe molds and heels separated by size are piled on circular shelves in the middle of a vintage-like shop on Grant Avenue in San Francisco’s North Beach. Rolls of cloth in faded colors cover the left wall, while the right wall displays personalized tags for previous customers of Al’s Attire, a custom handmade apparel shop where Al Ribaya makes shoes, suits and clothing from scratch. What may seem like decorations for the 1920’s era-inspired store are actually used on a daily basis by Ribaya himself.
Local, self-taught craftsman Ribaya has succeeded in turning his hobby into a bustling experience, while facing the pressure of rising rent, gentrification and hiring the right people in a fast-paced city.
As Ribaya fits a customer in front of a vintage wooden mirror as he stoically watches. He trusts Ribaya to make the right creases in his shirt as he pins down the folds to mark the measurements for tailoring. The customer who awaits a renewed dress shirt is Brady Baltezore, whom has been shopping from Al’s for 10 years.
“He pays attention to detail which is what makes him stand out from other clothiers,” he says after jotting down the time his shirt will be ready. “I came to him for my wedding and my wife has gotten a lot of clothes made here.”
Ribaya has provided the final touch for rounds of special occasions and dedicated customers. He has fashioned rock n’ roll attire for Green Day’s drummer Tre Cool, a Grammy’s Awards suit for Carlos Santana, and theater work for actress Reese Witherspoon and actor Rob Shneider. Al’s Attire employee Christian Jung says Ribaya has built the ideas of fashionistas, artists, musicians, actors, doctors, lawyers, shoe clients and limited edition collectors.
Al’s Attire attracts tourists and passerbys who are drawn in by a shimmery cinched waist fit-and-flare dress on display, or a baby-sized three piece suit and a pair of one-of-a-kind black on red wing tipped leather shoes. Ribaya says many supplies, including shoe soles and heels are made there. “We don’t just go pick materials up from a supply warehouse,” he says. This is another aspect of the shop that outshines typical retail boutiques and engages a diverse clientele base.
“Al’s is not only a destination for San Franciscans, but for people who fly in from all over,” he says as he heads across the street to Ideale Ristorante for his first meal of the day: dinner. His commitment and the enjoyment of his work often keep him from taking a lunch break all day. What makes the shop so successful, according to Ribaya, is to be “embedded in the neighborhood.”
After migrating with his family from Manila to San Francisco in the 1960’s, Ribaya grew up in the Mission, where he started making shoes post-high school graduation. As a teen shoemaker, he fell in love with the craft and grew on to make clothing. Al’s Attire has been located throughout several districts of San Francisco since then, including Haight-Ashbury, the Castro, downtown, and for 22 years now, North Beach.
“I’ve decided to stay in North Beach because it’s the best in the city; it has ambiance, history, and a neighborhood feel to it,” he says before greeting and ordering an appetizer from the chef at Ideale. “We add character to North Beach and fit right in.” Like the chef, Ribaya is not only a master of his craft, but he knows the difficulties of being an entrepreneur in the city.
“For any type of craftsman, it’s difficult to balance a hobby as a business and keep it open for a good length of time,” says Ribaya , who has witnessed neighboring shops close down in the past. “Clients don’t understand the art of building from scratch.”
Like many businesses in North Beach, Ribaya must maintain the expectations of his landlord and deal with rising rent every three to five years because there is no rent control for commercial property. “There’s a lot of money in the city, but those who have it are taking away spaces for people to live,” Ribaya says, “ not only displacing housing, but also the commercial locations.”
“The techs who have the money are making it hard for us, and most of them don’t care about fashion,” Jung says. For Ribaya, not owning a building is an obstacle that profoundly affects his shop. The absence of rent control also affects how he must budget, especially while hiring. Ribaya has about six employees, none of which have entry-level positions. “Most people demanding jobs are looking for something at a higher level, not minimum wage,” Ribaya says. Amongst the stylists, co-designers, tailors and fashion interns that have worked for him, most of the younger employees have gone off to start their own businesses or work under corporate-owned businesses.
Designer Nancy Bui, who moved the location of NB Design & Pink Blossom to Grant Avenue seven years ago, is empathetic to Ribaya’s struggle. “It’s hard to find a person who can sow because all the seamstresses and tailors we’ve had are getting old or retired, and then it’s hard to replace them since the younger crowd doesn’t want to stay in this field,” Bui says.
But Ribaya, dressed in a baby blue button-up shirt, a leather apron and jeans, knows his former employees have acquired a great experience. “Many of them come back and ask me to produce for them after they start their own businesses,” he says. And certainly, some of them come back to greet Ribaya.
Many of his greeters, in fact, are not there to purchase anything, but simply to stop by and be surrounded by Ribaya’s talent.
“Al has always been supportive of the arts,” Ribaya’s good friend Robert Hinish says. Ribaya produced theatre attire for Hinish when he had Bannan Place Theatre open from 1987 until 2006 in North Beach. “He is well dressed, stylish, and easy-going. He is extremely accommodating.”