Community Work; In The Tradition "Sirius" CD; Poetry

July 5, 2012: I haven't had a chance to write much, so I'm using this time to catch up. In the past month and a half, I've been really busy as usual. In Detroit, for 13 youth groups from the Detroit area, Soh, Meiko, and I co-facilitated an Introduction to Asian Culture for the Detroit Asian Youth Project. We had a Cultural Mapping excercise and an "I AM FROM" poetry workshop. Emily Lawsin, Matthew Oldsman, and I read our poetry- another historical reading...first time we read together! The event was well attended...over 50 people participated in the mapping and poetry excercises! On June 23, I read from my book at a new place called "The Collective" in Detroit. After the reading, I participated in the 30th Anniversary of the death of Vincent Chin lecture and tour series. In Detroit's former China Town District, I provided a short lecture on exclusionary laws pertaining to Asian Americans in the US; a brief history on the formation of ethnic enclaves; shared a personal account of my Filipino grandfather and his brothers'immigration; their work in Alaska and Seattle fishing industries, and, field work picking fruit and vegetables for the Libby Foods corporation, to discuss the historical "retro fitting" of Asians by education and work skills. This past Sunday, I attended Grace Bogg's 97th Birthday party at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. This Saturday, July 7th, for the DAY Project, I will be at the Michigan State University building on Woodward in Detroit, with Shane Bernardo to facilitate a class on Asian Culture, Food, and History of the Philippines. We are still trying to confirm the time. I should know something by Friday. Call me at 313 673-6313 for an update. I've either been reading my poetry book "Solitude of Five Black Moons" around Detroit or doing advocacy work for parents with special needs students. I was looking forward to taking a summer off, but last week I learned that the school that my nephew attends, fired most of the vocational teachers because they did not have special ed teacher certifications... That is a whole other space that I can't write about right now...So I'll shift my thoughts to the band that I record poetry with: In The Tradition. Last week, I learned that In The Tradition's "Sirius" cd is number 9 on a jazz chart of CJSW FM in Calgary, Alberta Canada. On July 3, around 8:00 p.m., while I was talking to Olujimi, a DJ from Costa Rica contacted band leader Olujimi via Facebook and informed him that he just received the cd in his hands and was going to play it. My poem, Pan Afrikan Prayer has been getting a lot of airplay and positive feed back from DJ's and listeners from all over the world! Other radio stations that have my poem and the cd in rotation are: WAIF FM in Cincinatti, Ohio WZZA AM in Tuscumbia, Alabama WHFR FM (Henry Ford Community College) Dearborn, MI WJSU FM in Jackson, Mississippi 95.5 FM in San Jose, Costa Rica 91.7 FM in Lagos, Nigeria WNCU FM in North Carolina That's all for now... Aurora