Voices on the Side

Welcome back for Part 2 with Yaffa!If you enjoy our conversation, please rate, review, and subscribe - it really helps with visibility. ⁠Yaffa Instagram⁠⁠Yaffa Patreon⁠Organizing to a Living Utopia Training⁠Leah Instagram

Samar is the artistic/founding director of Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre (YSDT) and is based in Palestine and NYC. Samar graduated from the Ailey/Fordham BFA program under the tutelage of Kazuko Hirabayashi and her work has been performed in 19 countries on four continents. YSDT's mission is to create invigorating performance and education programs that expand access to and promote understanding through the arts. They celebrated 20 years this June.Our conversation is rooted in curiosity about each other's cultures, appreciation of the multiple functions of art, and enduring hope for liberation. YSDT WebsiteLeah's IG

Alisha is a Korean adoptee, mother, therapist, and educator. She was born in South Korea, grew up in Michigan, and now lives in NYC, where she has a private practice and small-batch pasta business with her husband. Alisha was the Korean American Story 1st Place Winner earlier this year for her piece “Loss, Love, and Liberation.” Alisha talks to us about growing up as a transracial adoptee in a small, rural town and the internalized whiteness that she started recognizing and healing from once she went to college. She references a PBS documentary called South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning, which examines fraud and abuse allegations in South Korea’s foreign adoption industry. We also discuss our respective postpartum periods and mental health challenges, the healing and grieving that motherhood brings, and how we cannot help but see our own children in the children of Gaza. As powerless as many of us feel in stopping wars and genocides, I believe that it matters how we raise our children and how we show up in solidarity in day to day life. Alisha and her family are a particularly poignant example of all of us being connected as they are raising a Korean Jewish daughter, who I can’t help but see my own daughter in. Because we are all ultimately one human family. Alisha’s IG Leah’s IG

Janet is a Dance Embodiment and Moving Meditation Guide who explores healing, self-discovery, and re-wilding through the power of dance and somatic movement. Our conversation dives right into a discussion of the wellness world and the burnout that can result as we try to free ourselves from personal and systemic trauma and harm. As a non-binary person of color growing up under the weight of expectations from family, society, and self, Janet has fought to understand and be who they really are. We talk about various systems of oppression from racism to capitalism, the resulting burnouts, and how to stay resilient through it all. We ask questions of how we can reframe the wellness world, what does it mean to seek truth, and how do we receive so we can actually heal? This was an extra long conversation so the first half will be available on Patreon which you can check out for a free 7-day trial. Janet’s website Janet’s IG Leah’s IG

Liz is the president of AAP(I belong), a nonprofit organization that aims to raise greater awareness on Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander discrimination and cultural challenges. Liz created AAP(I belong) after her mother was attacked — for being Asian. We talk about the way that the Asian American identity is structured to be successful and how we are gaslit to think that we are only subjected to so-called micro aggressions, all the while being constantly reminded that we are foreign and do not really belong. Liz talks about the “pie of racism” —all racism is connected. She could see the thread connecting the murder of George Floyd to the Atlanta spa shootings to the attack on her mother. We need to keep talking about racism, including defining racism as an ideology that is separate from individuals. Sometimes we can all get caught up with claiming how not-racist we are, that we end up enabling and upholding the system itself. I admire that Liz has been able to alchemize the trauma of her mother — and of herself — to build community, to educate, and to envision a more inclusive future where we are all free. Please enjoy, the very resilient — Liz. AAP(I belong) website AAP(I belong) IG Leah’s IG

Raj is a husband, father, meditator, and overall life enthusiast. As an advisor and consultant, Raj’s passion for strategy and vision building has allowed him to lead successful strategic initiatives for both profit and non-profit organizations. In our wide-ranging conversation, we talk about what it means to “build a brand,” how meditation helps in parenting, and Raj’s belief that practicing boredom is an essential art. We talk a lot about family — the way we were both raised by resource-constrained immigrant parents, the idea that parents are stewards of their children, and the roots of ancient cultures which are about the collective rather than the individual. This conversation is a much-needed dose of honesty, wisdom, and encouragement, a reminder to recognize and be humbled by our privileges, and a call to remember that we have agency in the choices that we make. Please enjoy this far-from-boring conversation with — Raj. Raj’s website Bigger Than Us podcast Leah’s IG