“Dancing makes me more connected to the culture.”

Turón, tulum, lumpia, spring rolls, punipuri, mango lasi, and thai tea aromas filled the kitchen toward the end of May at RYSE. This Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Month came with intention. The end result was a vibrant AAPI Spirit Week capped off with our first inaugural Asian Rysing: Double the Happiness, Double the Fun cultural event, but all of that vibrance started with our Asian Rysing staff and their drive to introduce the space to the specific tastes, sounds, fashions, and arts the community has to offer.

Chantille Tran, RYSE’s Restorative Practices Associate described how this Spirit Week was to inspire pride and community in RYSE’s AAPI members, as well as to open new doors for youth from across our diverse communities. Young people from Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) helped enliven the event with Lao dance and poetry dedicated to Yemen, through cultural practices, describing connections to their ancestors: to time periods, contexts, and people out of reach that, through arts and language, one can still abstractly communicate with. On the other hand, young people from other communities got the opportunity to immerse themselves in what that means.

In solidarity and connection, young people from other communities also got to immerse themselves in vibrant performances, henna, origami, a chopsticks challenge and a film screening.

“Dancing makes me more connected to the culture.” One of APEN’s Lao dancers, Alida, described her first generation experience of growing up far away from one’s culture. She described how her family advocated for a connectedness through learning the language, but to her surprise, it was dance that fostered that connectedness — even helping her pick up the language better. Other dancers echoed feeling the deep need to pass their cultures on to the next generation.

Poem by Alya Alezzani, APEN Youth

The lineages, legacies, and current movement work of our AAPI communities are embedded in RYSE’s birth and being. Leading up to the Asian Rysing event, RYSE members and staff recognized and celebrated our unity with lucky colors, anime, games of majong, Tai Chi, yoga, haiku writing and discussions about the histories of Asian solidarity.

Former RYSE staff member Jenabi Pareja stopped by throughout the week to host cooking workshops inspired by the worker-owned restaurant Understory Oaklandhe is a partner in, turning the kitchen into an immersive experience of Filipino and AAPI culture as a whole.

Justice x RYSE in the Community

RYSE’s R2P2 team attended the Office of Gun Violence Prevention Community Roundtable with Attorney General Rob Bonta late last month. We got to hear from various California violence intervention program leaders, including RYSE’s Associate Director, Kanwarpal Dhaliwal on the state’s responsibility to maintain safety and a sustainable livelihood for youth, families and adults impacted by gun violence.

Young people have shared they are more than a metric of risk, disease, delinquence, as so many of our systems reduce them to. And they know that systems and adults unjustly correlate their injury to culpability.
Our young people should not have to show proof of pain for the resources and supports that already belong to them.
Young people call on us to be empathetic, responsive, attuned. To center and comfort them. Not surveil and control them. Young people need systems to change their behaviors, to reduce the risks they create and allow."
-Kanwarpal Dhaliwal, RYSE Associate Director and Co-Founder

RYSE hosted a screening and panel discussion of the short film "Judging Juries," an exploration of racism in the jury selection process. Directed by Abby Ginzberg, who was in attendance with such guests as District Attorney Diana Becton, Public Defender Ellen McDonnell, Judge Brenda Harbin-Forte, and Dr. Kerby Lynch. RYSE members got to be in community with them and examine how these issues affect our justice system and explore community-based solutions.

Light the Mic

Light the Mic was a multi-artform event featuring youth and adult performers in spoken word poetry, Turf Dancing, and Visual Arts. It also featured a youth open mic for all forms of creativity. RYSE member Amaya hopped on stage and performed a collaborative poem with Bay Area Creative’s Eternity! Watch it above.

A HUGE Thanks to Those Who Attended This Year’s Be a Kid!

The community showed up, showed out, and raised $60,000!!

RYSE’s Youth Emergency Care Fund provides timely and direct funds to young people to access basic human rights – safe housing, food, and health services. Since its creation in 2020, the Youth Emergency Care Fund has provided support for over 300 young people and their families.
Our goal is to sustain a fund of $200,000 for 2024. If you’d like to make an additional donation to the Youth Emergency Care Fund, you can do so here.