Essential Truths: The Bay Area in Color

130 writers and artists respond to the unprecedented uncertainty of our times with prose, poetry, and visual art reflecting their Bay Area realities as Black, Brown, Indigenous and People of Color or White allies.

  1. Literary Arts
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  • 130 writers and artists respond to the unprecedented uncertainty of our times with prose, poetry, and visual art reflecting their Bay Area realities as Black, Brown, Indigenous and People of Color or White allies.​

    The pandemic and other events have tested every fiber of our being and shaken our relationships with family, community, the nation, and the earth itself. As our basic assumptions about lifewere upended again and again, what essential truths emerged?

    • What has it been like living with uncertainty?

    • What did we lose, what have we released, what have we gained?

    • What has tested and inspired us as people of color or allies?

    • What gives us strength to keep going?

    • What have we learned? How are we working for positive, sustainable change?

    ​_________________

    CONTRIBUTING WRITERS (partial list)

    Tongo Eisen-Martin, Poet Laureate of San Francisco

    Kim Shuck, Poet Laureate Emerita of San Francisco

    Rafael Jesús González, Poet Laureate of Berkeley

    Kimi Sugioka, Poet Laureate of Alameda

    Ann Muto, Poet Laureate Emerita of Cupertino

    Avotcja, poet, musician and DJ KPOO and KPFA radio

    Celeste Chan, Chinese American queer activist

    Dena Rod, Iranian American poet and queer activist

    Elmaz Abinader, lebanese American writer, and educator, co-founder of VONA/Voices

    James Cagney, African American poet

    Josiah Luis Alderete, Chicano poet

    Karla Brundage, African American writer

    Karina Muǹiz Pagan, Latinx labor organizer

    Kevin Madrigal Galindo, writer and food justice advocate

    Nancy Wang, Chinese American writer/performer, Eth-Noh-Tec

    Sandra Bass, Associate Dean and Director of the UC Berkeley Public Service Center

    Susana Praver-Perez, Assistant Medical Director, Clinica de la Raza, Oakland

    Tony Aldorondo, Puerto Rican American poet/performer

    Tony Robles, Filipinx America poet and activist

    Truong Tran, Vietnamese American poet and educator

    Tureeda Mikell, poet, storyteller, energy therapist

    Hassan Abdul-Haqq, community gardener &Wei-Ming Dariotis, Professor of Asian American Studies, San Francisco State University

    CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS (partial list)

    Karen Seneferu, African American artist, educator, and co-founder of The Black Woman Is God

    Adrian Arias, Peruvian poet, artist, performer

    Ajuan Mance, African American visual artist and professor of English at Mills College

    C.K Itamura, Japanese Americanartist

    Cece Carpio, Filipinx street muralist

    Cindy Shih, Chinese American painter

    Cynthia Brannvall. African American artist and faculty member, Foothill Community College

    Edsel Rivera, Nuyorican street mural photographer

    Elaine Chu & Marine Pérez-Wong, Twin Walls Mural Company

    Lorraine Bonner, African American sculptor and poet

    Malik Seneferu, African American artist, educator, and community activist

    Mark Harris, African American artist

    Wanda Sabir, journalist, Wanda’s Picks podcast and educator, College of Alameda