Black lines on white background with words 'Rimay Raiz'

A collage of a woman in summer clothes beside one in winter clothes; three authoritative-looking women; a girl against a night sky; a woman with her eyes closed; a colorful pattern of sacred geometry; a Chinese water color of birds; a sleeping woman; a woman wearing a poncho; a woman holding a gun.

Three men standing side-by-side near trees with a bridge in the foggy distance

About a dozen uncooked dumplings sitting upon a white plate dusted with flower

Film poster for 90s Disney Film "Honey I Blew Up the Kid". Depicts actor Rick Moranis standing in the middle of a white background with a giant red and white toddler's sneaker ominously hanging over him about to stomp on him. Poor man!

A man wearing a golden headless, holding a staff, sitting on a rock; a sword is stuck into his chest and he is bleeding, yet looks proud

Memoir

A piece about the conflicting experience of being disconnected from cultures that have faced so much adversity and colonization. It is about feeling intrinsically connected to these cultures and yet being so displaced from them.

i am a temple forged from sun
an army of iron shimmers from its
golden rays off a white cross
lodged into the beating heart of an empire

i am a dying kingdom
the bleeding sun’s old toy
its bloated bodies born from rotten pride
cast shadows on its land of pawns
like a mushroom cloud travelling by plane

i am of oceans apart
a dead culture, a dying language
a history clinging to its threads
starved of its power, forever writhing

i am empty water bottles
squeezed of worth and tossed aside
white plastic creases
curled over and aching

i am dust in rays of the sun
forever going and gone
yearning a time of no questions
kissing the relics of childhood

i am a temple forged from sun
an army of iron shimmers from its
golden rays off a white cross
lodged into the beating heart of an empire

displacement.

Rima(y) Raíz is a community collective created by and for the Andean/Andinx1 diaspora community of the United States. Launched in 2018 in New York City and New Jersey, our collective now has members in California and Illinois. We are: <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/jamie_sa">Jamie San Andres</a>, <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/claudia.urd">Claudia Urdanivia</a>, <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/sandycha">Sandy Enriquez</a>, Ben Kruse-Calla, <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/layqakuna">Layqa Nuna Yawar</a>, and <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/sbarretolastra">Stephanie Barreto-Lastra</a>, among others that come and go.

Rimay Raiz was created given the erasure and racist portrayals of Andean and Andean-descendant communities among both Latinx and white communities in the United States. Thus, our collective seeks to confront this discrimination and sense of dual exclusion by uplifting and sharing the stories and experiencies of our communities on our own terms, as a way of exposing and resisting the insidious ways that colonialism and imperialism continue to impose their binary and Western epistemologies on our bodies, minds, spirits, and communities, across time and across borders. This resistance is also represented in our name, which connects two sides of our cultural heritage by using the Quechua/Kichwa word ‘rimay’ (to speak) and the Spanish word ‘raíz’ (roots). We are speaking from our roots. Quechua/Kichwa is an ancestral Indigenous language of the Andes and remains one of the most widely spoken Native American languages in the Americas today.

Our goal is to (1) interview three generations across the US-Andean diaspora, from youth, adults, and elders, and include community leaders that have been carving spaces for our community for decades, be that cultural or political (2) archive the oral histories in a public website, (3) share and discuss our stories through multimedia, via a podcast, zine, public space installations, and Raymikuna or virtual parties in this pandemic era, and (4) organize gatherings to celebrate and unite Andean cultural advocacy efforts. Through these initiatives, we aim to reclaim a sense of identity, alter dominant narratives about our communities, preserve experiences and knowledge of our elders, and create a sense of solidarity across borders within the Andean diaspora.

Porque las historias nos llaman, las historias nos limpian y sanan, como el agua y neblina bendita de la montaña.

The last three years we have recorded 14 oral histories and published two zines, some of which are featured here.

 

Issue #1: Choclo y Chicha, self titled

<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/listing/10/cover-10/Screen_Shot_2021-01-07_at_5.25.08_PM-original-489444.png"/>

In March 2020, Rimay Raiz launched <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/listing/choclo-y-chicha-vol-1/10">Choclo y Chicha</a>, a zine that shares the contributions of the Andinx diaspora through poetry, art, and storytelling. Both choclo and chicha are Quechua words for our ancestral foods of fresh corn and maize drinks, we chose them to reflect our cultural connections and create a space for a uniquely Andean zine. Chicha is also a type of music, Peruvian cumbia, that musicologists and sociologists claim emerged in the Amazon of Peru out of a sentiment of exclusion and otherness by dominant white, criollo elites.

We chose to include zines as part of our core mission because they would allow us to showcase creative, multimedia works from our communities on our own terms, without the need to compromise our vision through mainstream publishing. We also want to acknowledge the diverse ways that our communities express their thoughts, feelings, and experiences, some orally, while others visually or through text. We hope to distribute the zines widely and inspire others in our community to value and share their own stories and experiences through this, and other mediums.

Our first zine featured profound stories such as “Camino hacia la Boca del Lobo-Simiatug” by Jimena Vega, powerful poems such as “Mama Negra, Mama Tierra” by Mónica Carrillo Zegarra, and art by colectivo member Layqa Nuna Yawar, Lenny Correa.

Initially, our zine launch was scheduled to be an intimate event with members of the collective and fellow contributors for the zine, with music, food, and dance. Once the pandemic swept the globe, we made the decision to transition to a virtual event that could replicate this celebration while holding space for our community during this immensely difficult time. You can watch our first two Raymikuna, virtual parties on the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RimayRaiz" target="_blank">RR page</a> on Facebook.

 

Issue #2: Family Portraits

<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/listing/9/cover-9/Screen_Shot_2021-01-07_at_4.33.36_PM-original-483649.png"/>

Our <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/listing/choclo-y-chicha-vol-2/9">second zine</a> focuses on the intersection of stories and memory through family photos. In this section we feature excerpts from the incredible oral history of Analisa Freitas and the beautiful poem by Marisol Silva, “when I make chicha morada and play your huaynos full blast, and I carry a backpack on the 7 train from Queens to Brooklyn brimming with jars of aji panca, aji amarillos, rocotos, I hold onto Ayni when I can’t remember words in any language, I hold onto Ayni, when I remember that who we are as a people is much too strong to ever be forgotten,” she writes.
 
Additionally, inspired by our colectivo member Jamie San Andres’ call to action, we are excited to also introduce a new section to our zine entitled Andean Political Reflections, that speaks to the issues and uprisings the Andean region has experienced in the last two years. It is impossible to do cultural work without addressing the political.

We invite you to join our Choclo y Chicha Zine Vol. 2 Raymikuna, virtual zine parties, this Sunday, January 10th from 4-6pm, to hear from contributors of the Family Portraits section, and Sunday February, 28th from 4-6pm, to hear from contributors of the Andean Political Reflection section.

 

Conclusion

To learn more about our work and stay in touch, please follow us @RimayRaiz on <a href="https://instagram.com/rimayraiz/" target="_blank">Instagram</a> and <a href="https://facebook.com/rimayraiz">Facebook</a>. We will also be launching our website in Summer 2021 which will feature our oral history archive, zines, and other projects. If you would like to get in touch about potential collaborations or have questions, reach out to us at <a href="mailto:rimayraiz@gmail.com">rimayraiz@gmail.com</a>. We would love to hear from you.

Until then, tupananchiskama!

 

<hr/>

 

1&nbsp;The Andean diasporic community includes people with South American heritage from Andean countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru. Hence, Rimay Raiz utilizes the term Andean to refer to this region of South America, as opposed to folks that are strictly from the highlands. 
We remain inclusive of the many nationalities in the Andean region, and recognize that people that may identify with diverse backgrounds, such as that of the coast and the Amazon, Black Indigenous, and mestizo. We welcome all people who identify with our mission and background, whether they are recent immigrants, second generation, or have not connected to their ancestral countries for generations.

Rima(y) Raíz is a community collective created by and for the Andean/Andinx diaspora community of the United States.

Choclo y Chicha: a zine for (and from) the Andean Diaspora

Echoes of our ancestors,
Heard across time and space,
We find the key to our future
As we look into the past.

Calling all Andean and Asian American folks! AltSalt is creating two multidisciplinary collections of work — and we want you to be a part of it.

Who: Zinesters, writers, artists, designers, game developers, videographers, musicians, and more who identify as Andean or Asian American.

What: Team up or work solo to submit a publication based on the following prompt: “Envision a future in which your culture, history, and values have guided the world to an alternative reality — and harnessing that energy, create a piece to resonate with our times.”

When: Work can begin as soon as you read this message. We’ll hold a workshop weekend July 17-18th (schedule available here) to spend time together and share progress (the workshop weekend is over!), with a final submission deadline of Sunday, August 15th. The date will come fast — let’s get started!

If you’d like to get involved, please…

Join our Discord server (optional, highly encouraged).

We also welcome folks doing cross-community collaborations. Want to team up and combine Andean and Asian cultural influences? Do it! We’ll have special sections for cross-community projects in both collections.

Brainstorm ideas, form teams if applicable, begin work



Saturday, July 17th — Sunday, July 18th

Workshop weekend to connect and share progress (full schedule available here)

 

Sunday, July 18th — Sunday, August 15th

Continue working on and submit final projects



Our Broader Vision — Our purpose is to envision and create an alternative world through our collective creativity. To grow in community, we must become curious on how we can not only grow as one, but with the multitudes we intersect with. We hope that this can be the first of many initiatives to create solidarity across communities and share knowledge. Let’s transcend artificial boundaries; let’s connect.

Why these two communities? They’re the ones us, the organizers, are most familiar with and the ones that we belong to. We hope to offer a similar space for other communities on AltSalt in the future!

Open To All Creatives — No matter where you are in the creative process, whether your work is free or commercial, you can get involved:

Have you already created work and want to list it in the collections?



Have you started working on creative projects but haven’t had the capacity to finish them?



New to zine-making or creative publications? 

You are welcome to participate! Just fill out the participation form, then join our community of creatives on Discord for inspiration, collaborators, or guidance, and get involved with our upcoming events.

The Andean collection aims to highlight creative and artistic works in diverse mediums/publication styles from self-identified Andean creators. We utilize the term ‘Andean’ to embrace and honor our shared history before colonization, although we recognize that today many of us are accustomed to identifying by nationality (such as Peruvian or Peruvian-American). We appreciate the rich complexity of identities represented in our community and welcome anyone who has ancestral or social ties to the Andes (whether Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, etc), and its diasporas, to participate. Andean identity is also intersectional and extends beyond an Indigenous, Spanish, mestizaje, or Latinx/Latine dichotomy; therefore, we wish to be inclusive of diverse diasporas such as Peruvian Nikkei and Afro-descendiente communities.

This collection is by and for us, our ancestors, and our future generations. Our goal is that it feel both intimately familiar and, at the same time, entirely new because it encompasses diverse perspectives within our shared cultural repertoire, which is so rarely represented in the dominant narrative.

This is an experimental place to explore your individual identity, your creativity, and be a part of our community. We invite you to visit, contribute, and collaborate with us in whatever ways are most inspiring to you.

A S I A N   A M E R I C A N   C O L L E C T I O N

The Asian American collection seeks to explore the many facets of Asian American’s experiences and varied cultural heritages through creative mediums and publications. This collection is for and by Asian Americans, including those whose backgrounds encompass East, Southeast, and South Asian, Pacific Islander, multi-ethnic and diasporic Asian identities.

In defining a collection, the distinctions of who is included in ‘we’ and ‘us’ remains slippery. Within our communities, there are often inequalities of power between groups. Differences within ‘Asian American’ across class, color, gender, sexuality, religion, immigration status, history, and national origin produce asymmetrical and uneven histories, and encounters with state violence. Additionally, calls for community might strategically offer unity yet conflate the differentiated effects of racialization and colonization under one umbrella term. Rather than demand inclusion, our collection offers a space for sharing narratives that speak to different intersections of histories and experiences, within those who identify as Asian American.

This collection seeks to provide a space for identity exploration, community building and a creative well, to come to nourish ourselves, refill our cup and continue to explore without boundaries, to stretch the limits of our imaginations — using our creative practice to puzzle through the times we’re in together towards a future of collective liberation.

To envision an alternative world.
Because representation matters.
Sharing knowledge and consciousness,
Let’s create the future.




From left by row: Artwork by Jessica Tin, Jamie San Andres of Rimay Raiz, Layqa Nuna Yawar, Lia Coleman, Felix Kar-wah Fok courtesy of Shirley Man-Kin Leung, Sandy Enriquez, Adina Farinango, and Angela DelosReyes. Background pattern by Artemio Morales with gratitude  to the teachings of Zadir Milla Euribe. Music by Jonathan Morales. 

Alternative Worlds: The Andes and Asian America

Every year since my friend Bill committed suicide, his mother and I had exchanged Christmas cards. And I am one of those people who do holiday letters. As I have drifted apart from college friends, those annual missives are the only updates I get or give to them and some others in my life, including Bill’s mother. In the holiday letter of 1997, I had announced to the world that after years of hiding the truth even from myself, I had finally come to terms with being gay.&nbsp;I had just moved to the Normal Heights section San Diego from where I had been living in northern San Diego County, in Carlsbad. The house that I was now renting was on the hill above the Qualcomm Stadium where the 1998 Super Bowl would be held, close enough to hear the blimp engines and we’d be able to walk out to my front porch to see the Blue Angels flyover and watch the fireworks show. I decided to throw a Super Bowl/house warming/coming out party.&nbsp;When I packed for the move from Carlsbad to San Diego, I had vowed I would really weed things out. If I was never going to read that book or wear that shirt again, I’d donate it. Bags of clothes went to Goodwill and boxes of books went to the Carlsbad Library.&nbsp;The Friday before Super Bowl Sunday I still had lots of unpacking to do to and I had promised myself that every single box would be emptied so I’d have Saturday free for party prep. I had about 15 boxes to go and was slicing into them, quickly dispatching whatever I found to the appropriate shelf, closet, or cabinet. Then it happened. I slit open a box that I moved to Carlsbad and from Carlsbad without having ever opened. It had stayed for years out of sight up above my car on the joists of the garage. I knew I was never going to wear the clothes that were in it or read the books or look at the photos hidden in it. In it were all of the things that reminded me of Bill. Photos of the trips we had taken together, music cassettes, books, clothes, and gifts he had given me over the years of our friendship. Shortly after Bill’s death, unable to deal with my guilt and sadness, I had sealed all remembrances of him away and I had no intention of opening that box either before or after the move.&nbsp;Suicide is different. I have lost close friends to cancer and felt terrible, but I never felt guilty. I can’t cure cancer. I couldn’t have done anything to prevent the car accidents that claimed other friends’ lives. But suicide, rightly or wrongly, feels preventable. If I had listened better, if I had been a better friend, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. Bill’s suicide haunted me so badly that I couldn’t bear to think about him without it causing days of depression.&nbsp;I opened that box and on top was a bicycling jersey Bill had given me. It made my heart sink. I hadn’t planned to deal with this box now or ever, but in my haste to finish unpacking, I had attacked the box without reading the magic marker warning on the top. Shit. I didn’t have time to deal with this. But the jersey wouldn’t release my stare. I had way too much to do and couldn’t spend time fixating on a stupid shirt. I should just re-seal the box and get back to work. Then I remembered my self-imposed dictum to get rid of anything I would never wear again. But I couldn’t throw it out. It was one of my last tangible reminders of Bill. A reminder I couldn’t bring myself to even look at, let alone wear, so I should just donate it to Goodwill. But I couldn’t give it away. I should just seal the box and deal with another time. But I had to deal with it sometime. I should just throw it out. And so it went, my wheels spinning in the same circle as I faced what I had avoided for years. I also thought of the absurdity of keeping a cycling jersey—my knees were too shot to ride more than a mile or two anyway. My days of riding centuries were over; that was something else Bill and I had in common, our knees had curtailed our serious cycling.I got tired of standing over the box, but still couldn’t let go of the dilemma. I carried the shirt to the living room and held it as I sat and stared at it and replayed the options in my head. Donate it. I can’t. Wear it. I can’t. Only to dismiss them all and start over again. After at least an hour, maybe two, I grew tired of my stupid indecision. I needed to go pick up my mail from my P.O. box before they closed and I hadn’t put a shirt on yet that day, so I just decided, screw it. It’s just a shirt. Put it on and go get the mail.<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/article/7/image-7/Ring Crop-152315.jpg" alt="A golden ring on a finger" style="height: auto;width: auto"/>Bill's ringIn that day’s mail was a package slip. I stood in line and gave it to the clerk who retrieved a padded envelope just slightly too large to fit in the box. On it was Bill’s mother’s return address. A month earlier, I had already received my once-a-year communication from her—a card with the usual short note, something to the effect of, “I hope you’re doing well” so I hadn’t expected anything.&nbsp;With great curiosity, I opened the envelope. In it was a gold ring. I recognized it immediately as Bill’s. He treasured that ring and had worn it for years. It had been made for him by his great-uncle, a dentist in England who used scraps of dental gold in wax molds to make jewelry of his own designs. After Bill’s great-uncle’s death, the ring meant even more to him as a daily reminder of the man who had been his surrogate grandfather. Bill and I had that in common, also—we each had a special great-uncle who took the place of the grandfathers we both lacked.&nbsp;After one trip to England to visit his mother’s family, Bill came back heartbroken. He said he had been helping his mother’s brother work in the garden and in the course of the digging and planting apparently the ring had slipped off his wet and slimy finger. He didn’t notice it was gone until they were done and he was washing his hands. They went back the garden and raked and dug and searched. They even borrowed a metal detector, but to no avail. Bill had lost the last piece of his great-uncle and there was no way to replace it.&nbsp;In the package with Bill’s ring was a handwritten note from his mother. She said her brother had been working in his garden and found the ring. He thought she should have it. She received the ring the same day she got my coming out letter and she knew I had to have the ring. She said she was giving it to me by proxy for Bill and that she was happy that I had finally found the self-acceptance that Bill never had. Suddenly everything fell into place. The real reason Bill had killed himself.&nbsp;I sat in the car and cried until I calmed down enough to drive home. It also seemed beyond coincidence that for the first time since Bill had died, I was wearing a shirt he had given me while I was holding his ring.&nbsp;Bill’s death had always been a scab for me. Not an open wound, but a barely-healed scab over a wound I was afraid to go anywhere near for fear of causing damage too deep to handle. I had a hard time ever remembering the good times with Bill since the ending was so horrible and my guilt so overwhelming that I shut out thinking about him at all. With the ring, I felt like he had forgiven me (if there was ever anything to forgive) and I knew I could finally start to think of him without immediately going to the bad places.&nbsp;When I got home, I called a friend of Bill’s in L.A. and asked how soon I could see him. Monday, the day after the Super Bowl, I drove to L.A. to have dinner with him. He and Bill had gone to high school together and lived together in Belgium for almost a year when they were trying to break into the ranks of professional track cyclists. I figured if anyone knew if Bill was secretly gay, he would. He said that even in high school, Bill’s friends had assured him that it was okay to come out. He’d still be their friend, and it would be okay. But Bill always vehemently denied being gay.<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/article/7/image-7/IYWH cover small-091429.jpg" alt="A book cover containing the title " style="height: auto;width: auto"/>The memoir containing this and other storiesI asked why he thought Bill was gay and he ran through a list of stereotypical gay interests including liking Morrissey, Lucy, and Marilyn Monroe. The way he dressed and held his cigarette. I had noticed some of those things, but attributed the mannerism to being half English and spending so much time in Europe. (There is the old joke: Is he gay? No, just European.) The friend also said he wondered about my friendship with Bill and how quickly Bill and I became friends when we started working together and Bill at times saying things about me that crossed the line from friendship to crush.&nbsp;The talk helped me understand so much. In my mind I replayed many of the moments I’d had with Bill and they made so much more sense now.&nbsp;Once I sorted out the flood of emotions, I wrote to his mother and told her that far more than his ring, she given me back Bill. I know Bill is still with me. He is a part of me and I can enjoy the good memories without having to dwell on the bad. I cried for days when he died, but had been afraid to since; afraid to start again for fear I’d never stop. I finally let out what I had kept inside. It put one more piece of my old unhappy life behind me, to be even happier out of the closet.&nbsp;I was able to unpack the rest of the box of Bill’s stuff. Wear those shirts again. Look at photos of him, have on display some of the other gifts he had given me.&nbsp;I sent Bill’s mother her annual Christmas card about three years ago and a few days later got an email from a real estate agent in Pasadena. He said he was sorry to inform me that Bill’s mother had died. He said in addition to selling the house for the family in England, he had been asked to check mail and follow up on things that required it. His mother never got over the death of her only son so at least now she was at peace.&nbsp;My eyes are moist and I am wearing his ring as I type this, and although still weirded out by the coincidence of the timing, but there has to be a message here: if I ever needed a final endorsement that I was doing the right thing by choosing to be happy for the first time in my life, Bill’s ring was certainly it.I have had so many people ask about the ring over the years. Sometimes just holding out my credit card to pay in a store, the clerk has grabbed my hand and wanted to look at the ring. Some seemed to sense there is some magic to it and asked if it had a story. Once at a drug store, I started telling the story to the clerk and then I realized a line was forming at the register and I apologized and stepped aside and everyone in the line said, “No, this is good. Go on. Finish the story. Please continue.”&nbsp;◇ ◇ ◇The story of The Coming Out Ring is abridged and adapted from <a href="http://www.waltergmeyer.com/product/werent-not-happening/" target="_blank">If You Weren’t Here, This Would Not Be Happening: plogs from my life</a>.&nbsp;Walter G. Meyer is the co- or ghost-writer of six nonfiction books and his the author of critically-acclaimed, award-winning, and Amazon-bestselling gay-themed novel Rounding Third. He has been on radio and television programs including NPR and he has spoken at colleges, libraries and community centers across the country.&nbsp;Mr. Meyer told his own coming out story in The Los Angeles Times, he has written for all of the major gay publications including Out and Advocate and he has written on LGBT topics for the mainstream press including The San Diego Union-Tribune and The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. His articles have appeared in Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, Orange County Register, Westways, Baja Explorer, and dozens of other magazines and newspapers. He is the co-author of a widely-produced stage play GAM3RS.&nbsp;Originally from Pittsburgh, Mr. Meyer has a degree from the School of Communications at Penn State and currently resides in San Diego.

Every year since my friend Bill committed suicide, his mother and I had exchanged Christmas cards. And I am one of those people who do holiday letters...

The Coming Out Ring

A short story about legacy, revolution, and obliquely, terraforming Mars. Also contains a dumpling recipe.

The morning of the ritual, my fathers assured me there was no need to be nervous. One reminded me I would have all the time I needed. The other said nothing, only tugged gently on my earlobe, to remind me of where I bit my grandmother the first time I met her and that we still laughed about it at family gatherings.

In truth, my nai nai, my grandmother, was a jovial woman who alleviated her rare bad moods with marathon cooking sessions that earned her a legendary status within the neighborhood. She promised me a simple conversation, but I knew it was more, this beginning of my journey into adulthood, the first time I would be listening to a story as its caretaker rather than its recipient.

The whole way to her home, I imagined what it would be like: solemn, I thought, precise, for certain. By the time I arrived on the third floor of a building set into the wall of the lava tube, I thought anyone might be able tell that I was not fit to begin. I hovered outside the curtain in the open doorway until a voice called out from within.

“Suying, no need to loiter. Come in, haizi.” I smiled, both charmed and worried that she would see me as a child no matter how old I grew.

I took a deep breath to brace myself, straightened out of the slouch the aunties in my building always hollered about and ducked through the curtain. I thought there might be incense, perhaps offerings to the ancestors and worried about the appropriateness of my simple smock. I even brought a notebook, real paper and a pen to help the words lodge within my mind. So I was startled to see my grandmother in the kitchen with an array of ingredients on the stone top island counter.

I paused in the doorframe, but my grandma smiled at me, corners of her eyes wrinkling up. She gestured for me to come to the counter and took the notebook from my hand. “Take notes another time. This time, you need only to listen.”

“I thought I was learning a story,” I said, hesitant, surveying the ingredients. A bowl of flour, already shifted, small dishes of spices, apportioned out, and a bundle of green onions, picked fresh from the hydroponic garden shared by the building. The large head of napa cabbage and a package of ground bean-based meat substitute made it clear that my grandmother was preparing to make our traditional family dumplings.

“I am going to tell you a story and I will teach you a skill,” my grandmother said as she directed me to the sink. She said nothing else until I cleaned my hands, dried them upon a dish towel she embroidered with a dancing fish, and rolled my sleeves above my elbows. When we stood over the ingredients, my fear of having to learn multiple things obvious by the way my eyebrows pulled together, she said, “This story will be yours to keep and preserve. One day, you will choose how to pass it on. Today, we do things this way.”

First, we mixed the dough, one part water to four parts flour. I put my hands into a heavy stone bowl and pressed the clumps of flour into each other, rolling and kneading to pick up the dusting of powder that remained. As I worked, beads of sweat building on my temple and an honest ache building up in strange parts of my arm, unused muscles stretching and pulling from the strain, my grandmother began to tell her story.

You already know that your three times great grandparent Zhou Daitan participated in the revolutionary struggles. I will not speak about that today. Instead, I will tell you of their life before the revolution, what made them the sort of person willing to stand arm in arm with their neighbors, the world that shaped them and that they shaped in turn. And though I did not know your three times great grandparent, this story comes to me from their daughter, to her daughter, and down to me. Through them, I bestow it upon you.

Once I punched the dough into a smooth ball, my grandmother declared the task done and we set it aside to rest. Then, I added soy sauce, salt, white pepper, as well as an egg to the meat substitute. With rhythmic, circular motions, I folded these ingredients together.

Daitan grew up on earth, on a patch of sparse and harsh land set aside for refugees. They were a rambunctious child, creative in inventing games and new ways to attract trouble. Though they received the mandatory years of education, provided by the international government for all refugee children, they were not an attentive student. Still, they read widely and thought freely, a difficult thing to do. And someone must have seen potential in that for they received a scholarship to university, sponsored by companies eager to showcase their generosity. They studied as widely as they read and meandered out of university two years too late with a degree in food science. Without sufficient social capital to obtain a posting in a lab, they returned to and worked in the packaging factory next to the camp where they grew tall and strong.

Under my grandmother’s watchful eye, I minced a handful of wood ear mushrooms, the slivers sticking to my hands, as well as a few shitake mushrooms, their unami infused scent filling my nostrils. These I deposited into the marinating meat substitute along with a dollop of sesame oil. Again, I accepted the wooden chopsticks my grandmother passed to me and mixed to integrate the dark pieces of seasoning.

Daitan’s time in university turned them quiet and contemplative. But working in the factory alongside childhood friends and strangers turned into family by proximity and shared struggle, they found their voice again. That voice spoke against exploitation and it wasn’t long before they drew the ire of those who hoped a heavy hand could crush dissent before it bloomed in full.

Then I went back to the bamboo chopping board, passed down through the generations, lovingly cared for by each. I recalled running my hands across the surface as a toddler, feeling the marks left it in by use, some sanded down or covered by newer marks over the years, and wondering when I’d get a chance to use it. Now that I was older, I didn’t have quite the same fascination with chopping vegetables. Still, I found the crunch and thunk of the knife through the green onions and the napa cabbage satisfying. I thought I’d have trouble listening and avoiding injury, but the rhythmic motion proved no distraction.

And so it was that Daitan found themselves cast out, blacklisted, unable to obtain even the meanest of jobs. Their fellow refugees knew what it was to be forced to the margins of society and offered them sustenance. For a time, Daitan was able to do good work within the camp, using what they learned in the factory to rebuild the hastily raised residences, repair the solar still that produced water. These odd jobs also allowed them to distribute the revolutionary literature published by friends within the factory. And when the operation was discovered, Daitan volunteered to take the fall.

The green onions went on top of the mixture and the cabbage went in a separate dish with salt to pull out water. While both rested, my grandmother upended the ball of dough onto a dusting of flour and put me to work pushing it across the counter until it tightened. With one smooth motion, she twisted the dough in half and began to roll her half out, until it resembled a snake.

As there were few places to exile someone who was already a refugee, Daitan found themselves on a one-way trip to the stars. They were still terraforming the planet then and Daitan, like many who grew up in the camps, found it difficult to breathe on the red planet. Even so, they tended to the legume fields for though they did not choose to come to Mars, they were forced to work off the cost of the fuel.

Slowly, so I could copy each step, my grandmother lifted the length of dough and pinched the top of it between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand. With her left, she twisted off pieces of dough. Mine were nowhere near as uniform, some small, some large, most torn off with great force rather than the deft and precise motions I failed to copy. When I grimaced at my collection of however, my grandmother only reached out to wipe a bit of flour from my chin and continued.

Daitan was hardly the only one who came to the planet unwillingly. Except for the youngest, taken in by a flashy recruitment poster and the promises of an unscrupulous earth-side recruitment center whose manager sated himself on kickbacks, all of their bunkmates fell afoul of one planetary power or another. And all of them dreamed of something different.

In synchronized motions, we crushed each knob of dough flat and tossed them in the flour so they would not stick together. Then I tipped the cabbage into the rest of the filling and mixed one last time, trying to ignore the ache in my arm and flinging a bit of filling onto the table in the process. Without

skipping a beat, my grandmother swiped the filling into a pan and set it atop the induction stove. Almost immediately, it began to sizzle and pop. She snatched it up with a pair of chopsticks, blew on it, and offered it to me. I closed my eyes as I considered the flavor and layered textures, to see if it needed anything else. When I decided it needed a bit more salt, I picked up the shaker, an old porcelain vinegar bottle repurposed and passed down.

During the day cycles, they rode lifts to the surface, where the vast legume fields blanketed the red dirt of the blossoming planet and fantasized about escaping over the horizon. At the end of their shifts, they urged the bovine herds that consumed the legumes into the shelter of the lava tubes and contemplated letting the animals loose. During their night cycle, they lay in their rickety three-layer bunks, six workers to a room, and traded stories or comfort.

My grandmother handed me a rolling pin, not much wider than my finger. She took one of the knobs of dough and brought the edge of it underneath the pin. In practiced motions, the pressed the dough from the outside in, turning the disc after each stroke. I ended up with an oblong shape of uneven thickness that made me wince when I compared it with her thin circle of dough. She took the wrapper from me without comment and began to fix it, gesturing for me to start another.

Life went on thus and though it seemed as if nothing changed as they repeated the same work against their ever-mounting debt, Daitan came to understood that they were building community. People who might have been enemies on earth taught each other their languages. No mode of living seemed all that strange from two meters away. Games and song and dance from different cultures passed back and forth, used to speed the trickle of time. And in these ways, large and small, sedition spread.

We continued rolling and pressing until we piled the wrappers high, dusted flour between each layer. I used chopsticks to position a dollop of filling in the middle of a wrapper. I set the chopsticks down and gathered the wrapper into my palm, watching my grandmother draw the edges together in folds that held the weight of her experience. Perhaps that’s what kept her dumplings closed because mine invariably peeked open at the edges, bits of filling threatening to burst out or the wrapper simply gaping wide.

At the factory, Daitan learned to play a game of make believe and magic. It was fantastical and fanciful and so no one took notice when they began to teach it to their friends. For diversion and escape, yes, but also to pass messages best left unsaid in rooms owned and operated by people who held debt over them like blades. And some things were better conveyed through simulation and practice than through explanation anyway.

My grandmother said that skill would come with time and practice. And I thought that this too, was a lesson she meant to impart. So I kept at it, crimping and folding and often failing, yet in the end, producing a precious few dumplings I would be proud to present to my fathers. Finally, we dropped them into the boiling water atop the stove, easing them into the roiling water one by one so that the hot water did not splash.

So it was that when the revolution began, Daitan knew what to do. They were part of a community once more, indebted to it, embedded within it, reliant upon it. Because what makes a person is not just who they are but what they do, the people who raise them, the society that shapes them, the atmosphere they breathe, the horizons they see. So it was with your three times great grandparent. So it will be with you. That is why we tell these stories, why we ask you to remember them, why we hope that you hold them to your hearts as we did, so you will make different mistakes, and so you will know what was freely given and what was taken to make a better world.

Within the Fold

Dear Art,

I'm happy to be writing to you in this new format, in these times. I think it feels like taking a coat of fresh paint to refresh my perspective on things and what better way to do it than in a new platform like Zonelets? [Note: This is now on AltSalt, which is a fine platform as well, ha]

This platform invokes a lot of technology, but as I approach my 31st birthday this Friday, I'm feeling many layers of emotions that are hard to parse through (Charlie Brown style).

Here's a list of things that have got me down on my birthday:

It definitely feels hard to be celebrating anything during these times! But ultimately even when I think of all these things I still try to find hope, and I would like to articulate some of those things that I look to that give me that hope.

Somehow, I think a lot of things really come down to the things that I'm learning as I'm being around my family. I've been back with them for the past several months to recover after grad school, but ultimately they bring forth a lot of deep memories and feelings within me. Pains, for all the mistakes they've made, but also hope at the same time, since ultimately many people are just like them, all trying their best to make the best lives for their families and children, but getting mixed up in the world.

Despite what platforms like social media might have us believe, I truly believe that only a very small percentage of the population does not have any empathy for other people. We, as any New Yorker knows, tend to go into our own worlds and walk as if we don't even see each other, but as soon as we see someone fall down in the street, you'll see people flock over to help, as if we're broken from our spell. And then, we all just move on. People are like that on a macro level too I think. Most of us would never truly wish harm on other people especially if we see that affect right in front of us, it's only when we are confused or angry or frustrated or misled that we end up losing empathy for others... Ultimately, the majority of people wish each other peace and goodwill, and it's only when our lines of communication break that we feel we can become cruel to each other...

That's my hope anyway!

I've talked a little about technology with you, so I won't dwell on that too much, and socioeconomic upheaval is way too big a conversation for me to talk about. But something that I think connects these things has been something I haven't brought up, neither in our past conversations nor in this writing so far, and it's that I've been taking an interest in the principles of child development, parenting, and psychology. Maybe the easiest entry point I can think of for all this is the idea that children need to live as children first. This might sound funny, but have you seen "Honey I Blew up the Kid?"

"Honey I Blew Up the Kid" if you don't know, is a sequel to the hit 80s live action Disney film "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids." In "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" a goofy scientist father Wayne Szalinski, played by Rick Moranis, accidentally leaves his experimental shrink ray on and his children end up getting shrunk to ant size and must find their way home from their backyard. It's a technical marvel and became the basis for a Disney theme parks attraction. "Honey I Blew Up the Kid" is the sequel to this movie with a reversal, where a toddler is blown up to 50 feet high and begins to walk towards downtown Las Vegas, filled with product placement for the Hard Rock Cafe amongst other things. I actually consider it the better movie, but that's besides the point.

My point that I want to get to is that I love how this movie uses this sci-fi analogy for what happens when a child grows up too fast. The baby is still psychologically a toddler, so he thinks a truck is a toy truck, and he thinks a giant guitar sign at the Hard Rock Cafe is a guitar. But ultimately, he's still a child, so when he gets inevitably gets injured, he cries, and the audience feels sorry for him, because even though he's really big, he's not capable of being responsible. At that point, they realize the solution to stopping the baby is to send in mama, because that's the only thing the baby will respond to.

My point is a little on the nose here, but I think that lots of things in society are in this constant balancing act to rush children to become mature and responsible adults who can fend for themselves. This dysfunction is not only present in something like a sci fi contraption like a shrink ray, but also in how we push kids to think about college or careers from a young age, or how we punish them for being creative because we want them to have a stable career, or how we punish boys for being sensitive because men don't show their emotions ("man up" and all that).

I think this kind of problem in society has been a tricky balancing act in different eras, the problem of wanting our children to have a childhood, but also want them to be ready for adulthood. I do think with our current era, however, technology takes things to a whole new dimension, where parents are unable to keep up with the young crowd, with rapid change within a single generation. If a younger cousin or a niece or nephew were having struggles with something like cyberbullying or social media, I don't think most parents would even know how to begin to approach dealing with those things, whether from an emotional perspective or a technological perspective, and I think a lot of young people have to look to half a generation above them. I sense that now with many Gen Z friends looking to their Millennial friends for advice.

Anyway, the hope that I get is that young people are able to learn quicker and more capably than their predecessors with faster technology, dialogs, and better toolsets to converse. It's really remarkable, like you said last week in our chat about the students nowadays. It's also a bit terrifying as a slightly older person! But I think we, as any older generation, can only hope to shepherd the younger generation as best we can and have faith they'll make the right decisions. We can guide them, but ultimately our responsibility is to leave the future in the hands of young people (whose hands it was always in the whole time). We just have to be ready to show up like their mama or papa when the babies are in danger of getting themselves hurt.

I also think that this kind of balancing problem of allowing things to mature before they become adults is also prevalent in how we approach creating technology, and I think there's a thesis to be made that a lot of our problems in technology are as fundamental as the issues that a child faces psychologically... but I think that's a whole point to discuss for another piece entirely. I wanted to keep this first piece of writing short.

I also sense your perspective on going back to basics and getting away from the bloat of modern living, beyond just technology, is also going to be insightful in our conversations. I've already sensed that in our talks about growing gardens and such.

Anyway, like I said, I don't want to keep too long, so I'll eagerly await your response.

In his first letter to Art, Charles writes on human nature, technology, and the 90s Disney film "Honey I Blew Up the Baby"

First Letter to Art - Human Nature, Technology, and Blown Up Babies

ALTERNATIVE

WORLDS

ASIAN AMERICA

THE ANDES

I was right there with you in your mission statement, about feeling the dual exclusion from both Latinx and U.S. heritages. I've felt that so much growing up as a Peruvian in the United States, and I'm so glad that this organization exists 🙏I resonated so much with Marisol's poem, with the mixture of Spanish and English, and with the connection to your grandfather and thinking about future generations' connection to their heritage.I resonated with Elena's piece, when you spoke about going to Peru and the eagerness to fill a hole made of solitude.I was right there with Analisa in so many parts of her story, riding on the swerving bus with the sheer drop to the ocean, when you met your brother for the first time, and forgetting how to speak in any language.Super appreciate all that the contributors shared during both of your events. Congrats on this publication, looking forward to the next one 🙂

I absolutely love this! This checks so many of my boxes; Social justice, Science fiction, Humanity and food.

Thanks Walter! Lovely story of healing and love.

<a href="/artemiosans" target="_self">@Artemio Morales</a> thank you so much for your poetry of a mesaage! it's an honor to have pieces of myself living on this online community.

Walter, this is so beautiful and moving. I resonate a lot with having jewelry that serves as a portal to another person's memories and life and stories.&nbsp;

<a href="/shirley" target="_self">@Shirley Man-Kin Leung</a> Hi Shirley - Thanks for writing. As I wrote in the story, the ring does seem to have a magic power that draws people. They want to talk about it I get to talk about Bill. At times I find myself twisting the ring on my finger and memories come flooding back.&nbsp;

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A cover image with the text "Making AI Art Responsibly: A Field Guide", & a cute character at the summit of a mountain alongside a flag.

The background is the Colombian Flag with the Words "Colo-Mitolo-Gital" spanning each stripe. In the foreground is a floating back and a pair of red heels. In the top right, there is two buttons

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Envisioning an alternative world

Cat Scratch Fever vol. 1

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