In this episode, Vick takes us back to the beginnings of the Sogorea Te' Land Trust, breaks down the history and importance of shellmounds (sacred burial sites) for the Ohlone peoples, and calls on us to (re)build our relationship with the land. They take us back to the first missions that were built and the religious trauma that ensued for California natives. She gives us some insight into local resistance efforts, inspiring land projects, and connects the dots for us between queer liberation, land rematriation, healing and the very real power of storytelling. 

Victoria Montaño (all pronouns are welcome)  is a first generation, Two-Spirit, Yo’eme (Yaqui), Mexikah, interdisciplinary artist borned and raised in the Village of Huchiun, present day known as Oakland, CA. She is a Po-scholar, Storyteller and Land Steward with the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust. Victoria’s work sheds light on Indigenous Solidarity across seas and false man made borders, Queer liberation, land rematriation, restoration and the reawakening of ancestral knowledge.

If you're in the Bay Area, please pay your yearly voluntary land tax to support the ongoing critical rematriation work of the Sogorea Te' Land Trust. Follow @sogoreatelandtrust , @savetheshellmound , @run4salmon to connect further with these urban indigenous women led efforts.

Beats were produced by local artists and musicians Monk HTS  and Evaclear.

Tune in, follow this podcast on Instagram, and tell a friend or two.

To kick off this season (an ode to those born and raised in the Bay Area), Khafre Jay takes the mic. He's a change-maker, community organizer, nonprofit worker, and Hip Hop Artist . As a Bay Area, Hunters Point activist fighting for racial and socioeconomic justice, he empowers community members to use their voices and resist structures of inequality—and he does so in large part through Hip Hop organizing. His passions for music, grassroots solutions, and community justice drove him to create the nonprofit Hip Hop For Change, which utilizes hip hop to break down barriers between youth and justice issues that affect their lives and communities. So far, he's employed over 1000 people in his community, educated over 30 thousand youth K-12, raised over 5 million dollars through grassroots means, and now he's coming for the rest of the nation.

Follow his work via IG @KhafreJay and through his personal website.

Beats were produced by local artists and musicians Monk HTS  and Evaclear.

Tune in, follow this podcast on Instagram, and tell a friend or two.

This season is for those born and raised in the Bay Area, for their stories, contributions and lived experiences. For their expectations and their demands; especially from those of us who are guests and settlers here. Guests will include artists, healers, educators, community organizers and culture workers. 

Tune in, follow this podcast on Instagram, and tell a friend or two. 

Beats produced by local artists and musicians Monk HTS  and Evaclear.

This podcast is both a call to remember what’s always been sitting deep within our bones, and an invitation for new stories to emerge. It's an opportunity to speak ourselves and our futures into existence. It’s for the stories that you’d never hear about in school, for the words that move us along both in healing and liberation… and it’s most definitely a nod to our ancestors.

Shoutout to all the amazing guests (and artists) that made this first season possible!

Check them out: Chirelle LeTrese, Diyala Shihadih, Dioganhdih, Kiki Fajardo, Ashley Finley, Jackie Fawn, and Edxi Betts in our bonus feature episode.

Beats produced by Frisco producers Monk HTS and Evaclear. Give them a follow and show them some love!

Edxi Betts is a Black, Blackfeet descended trans Pinay multi media insurrectionary artist and organizer. She is also a creator and self distributer of zines, as well as a published writer. She creates both art and media for the sake of propagating resistance culture, counter narrative, and collective liberatory projects that spark discourse, sources of healing, critical thought, dialogue, mutual aid and direct action. 

In this episode, we discuss art-making and its deep political connection to social justice movements. She gives us insight into the creative process under capitalist demands, and breaks down some of the ways in which community practices have been appropriated and misinterpreted as they turn into popular buzz word. We dig into several principles of abolition, mutual aid, and autonomous resistance.  

While exploring the concept of Afrofuturism and its implications today, Edxi says: “So much of it is making real what we're imagining. Black trans women and gender nonconforming people, we are the living embodiments of AfroFuturism, because we literally had to dream ourselves into being. There weren’t certain blueprints for people.” 

Given the current climate we're in, from climate chaos to social collapse, this episode is rich with wisdom, practical advice and words of caution stemming from lived experiences that are too often ignored by mainstream organizing and narrative-making.

Get a copy of their zine here. Listen to their band (Fire Cider) on Spotify. You can also read some of her published work, including her contribution to the 2019 book "Love with Accountability".

If, like me, you learned a lot from this episode and you were in some way energized and riled up by Edxi's words, please consider supporting her work for the long haul. You can find her on Patreon and subscribe to her page directly @bettsurevolt. 

Jackie Fawn has always been drawing and at one point couldn't stop herself from drawing during her lunch breaks. Today, you can see her art all over Turtle Island... from street murals to café walls and t-shirts and across many indigenous-led frontline struggles. 

For me, this indigenous and Filipina (Yurok, Wasiw and Suriganonon) baddie is one of the most important visual artists of this generation. Jackie’s illustrative work is recognizable by her depictions of strong indigenous femme warriors protecting the land, water, and people. As a first time mom, she is in the process of finding balance between family and art.

She speaks of the ways that being a mom has changed her and altered her priorities drastically, but no matter what the work that she does and the art that she creates is mostly for the kids, for the youth who may need a friendly reminder from time to time that it's OK to keep going, reach out for support and trust their passions.

Keep an eye out for FishBear Studios' coloring book that is soon-to-be-released highlighting ongoing native resistance, sovereignty and defense of land and water. Follow her on all the socials @jackiefawn & @fishbearstudios and check out their brand new website www.fishbearstudios.com 

In this episode, Ashley breaks down the spiritual nature of birth keeping and what it means to carry the legacy of her granny midwife from the south. She calls to a collective remembering of the ancestral knowledge and practices that have been passed on for generations, and of deep breath practices that genuinely nourish us. 

We also talk poetry, slam circles, and the magic that happens in spaces where one feels truly seen and heard. When she speaks of abolition and resistance, what quickly follows is also an invitation for nurturing Black joy, interconnectedness and strong communities.

In true educator fashion, she also provides us with some historical context to the myths that have been propagated about her community since as far back as the 19th century. You'll hear a call to connect and stay in relationship with the land and the plant relatives that care for us.

Ashley Finley is a birth keeper, a medicine maker, a poet, an educator, a nature lover, an activist, and one of the co-founders of Black Lives Matter Salt Lake City. You can find her work in publications such as Torrey House Press’s “A New World Coming” and Slug Magazine, as well as TEDx Salt Lake City and Write About Now Poetry.

Follow her on Instagram @findafinley and @sacredsisterdoula. If you're looking for a birth keeper, find out more about her services at www.sacredsisterdoula.com

For this episode, I sat down with Victoria "Kiki" Fajardo of Studio X, a women of color owned and operated recording studio in Oakland, Califas. 

She is a recording and mixing engineer, an archivist in sound restoration and preservation. Her focus is in creating a great and comfortable recording and mixing environment where the creative process is collaborative and in the direction that you desire. Kiki shares that a focus in her career is to center and uplift women and QTPOC folks in a male-dominated audio world. She's passionate about using audio for preservation and storytelling, music healing and decolonizing sound. She is a militant native Cucapah, repping both Mexico and the Bay.

Kiki breaks down the obstacles she's faced as a femme engineer in the white male-dominated audio industry, from the aesthetic choices she makes to the opportunities that weren't offered to her on account of her gender. We talked about storytelling and connecting in meaningful ways with our elders, about forced migration from Méjico and growing up in the diaspora. Born and raised in the Bay, this audio baddie takes us back to growing up during the Hyphy movement and shares the ways in which gentrification is impacting her community as we speak. 

And in true Kiki fashion, she shout outs the dope Bay Area female artists she's worked with along the way... and also gives us a glimpse into #FemmeFadeFriday. Follow ALL of these baddies: @ChhotiMaa @RockyRivera @VersoulMusic @KarlyMarieMusic

Check out @StudioX510 on Instagram and on their website directly for all your mixing, mastering, audio editing and podcast needs. Support Bay Area babes doing dope things. To book with Victoria directly, email her at: [email protected]. 

**Shoutout to Bay Area's own Monk HardToStop & EvaClear for producing the beats you hear in episodes for this entire season! Find them on Instagram @Monk_HTS @EvaClear_Music 

In this episode, Dioganhdih (they/them) breaks down the process of self-releasing an entire hip hop album through their label Do it Ourselves Records. The 2-spirit indigenous lyricist, MC & producer, hailing from the Akwesasne Mohawk nation, speaks of the tensions at the border that is crossing their ancestral Haudenosaunee territory, of leaving and then coming home to the rez as a queer person, and the intentions behind starting their own label. 

Dio takes us back in time, to their younger self who was moved and politicized by the art of hip hop (like so many of us), and to their journey as a queer indigenous artist navigating the music industry.

They give us a glimpse of their vision behind their land projects and rematriation, and share some of their best practices in herbal mutual aid, harvesting and seed collection. 

You can visit their website [https://www.dioganhdih.com/] and follow them on social networks @dioganhdih [Facebook, Instagram, Twitter]. You can find their album "Rezbien" on all streaming platforms, and if you purchase it on the first Friday of the month via Bandcamp, 93% of the proceeds go directly to them. This is true for ALL artists for at least the next 6 months.

Welcome to the 2nd episode of the first season of Zina's Buqalah! 

In this episode, I sat down with Diyala Shihadih of the Palestinian Youth Movement. Born and raised in the Bay Area, this Palestinian community organizer breaks down the history of the occupation of her homelands, the importance of stories and symbols (like the olive tree you can see painted across many murals like this one created by Black Panther OG Emory Douglas), and the right to return to Palestine in this lifetime. She goes on to debunk many myths and false narratives about her people and their struggle for liberation, and speaks of the importance and power of international solidarity between indigenous people. 

"From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free."

Find out more about the Palestine Youth Movement (PYM) and the critical work they do, by follow them on social media platforms and checking out their website. (https://palestinianyouthmovement.com).

"PYM is a transnational, independent, grassroots movement of young Palestinians in Palestine and in exile worldwide as a result of ongoing colonization and occupation of (their) homelands."

Beats in the background were produced by Monk HardToStop (@monk_hts) and Evaclear (@evaclear_music).