Today, Regina’s Door in Oakland serves as a healing artistic space for survivors of sex trafficking, as well as a launching pad for theatrical productions featuring the stories and performances of survivors. Its start came in 2014, when Regina Evans decided she needed to do something to help her community. “We have young girls being brutalized every day. In Oakland trafficking is very hidden, but if you go down International Boulevard, you also see very young girls — twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old, and you know they’re being raped,” she said.
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Blogger Tram Nguyen offers some of her initial takeaways following the 2018 GIA Conference in Oakland, California:
Blogger Lara Davis reports on day one (Monday) at the GIA Conference in Oakland
Today’s post focuses primarily on young people and the arts, and artists, with a little bit of, well, everything that’s inspiring me.
My first GIA conference is over, and I am so glad for the opportunity to be part of this one, focused on Race, Space, and Place, taking place in my adopted hometown of Oakland, California. Overwhelmingly, what I’ve taken away is a sense of optimism and excitement at the new discovery (for me) of such a vibrant and dynamic world of arts and culture strategists, funders, creators, workers, wonks, and change agents committed to social justice. I’ve been poring over Oakland’s Cultural Development Plan in my spare time since the conference, and found its guiding vision to be so profound: Equity is the driving force. Culture is the frame. Belonging is the goal.
Today’s post focuses primarily on young people and the arts, and artists, with a little bit of, well, everything that’s inspiring me. First, I want to take a moment to share some sage advice I received at breakfast as I was making choices about what sessions to attend. There’s not always congruence between what I should attend based on the work I do, and what I may want to attend. In the end, I decide to lean into inspiration, trusting what moves me. I thank Dr. Anh Thang Dao-Shah (Senior Racial Equity and Policy Analyst, San Francisco Arts Commission) for reminding me to:
The preconference session on “Culture at the Intersection of Race, Space and Place” has my worlds colliding this Sunday morning in downtown Oakland. In the spirit of storytelling—as panelists Roberto Bedoya and Favianna Rodriguez modeled—I am both a longtime Oakland resident, a current local government employee (in the county public health department), and a prior chronicler of race, space and place as a journalist at ColorLines.com.
Tram Nguyen currently works as a management analyst leading housing and health equity policy at Alameda County Public Health Department. She was the executive editor of ColorLines magazine from 2001-2007, and has worked for racial equity through multiple initiatives, including authoring the book We Are All Suspects Now: Untold Stories from Immigrant Communities After 9/11 (Beacon, 2004). Tram holds a Masters in Public Policy from UC Berkeley’s Goldman School.
Lara Davis is an artist, arts administrator, and creative strategist working at the intersection of culture, public education, and social justice. She is the arts education manager for Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture, and is part of the Visionary Justice StoryLab. Lara co-chairs A.R.E. (Artists for Racial Equity) Network, a National Guild for Community Arts Education network for artists and administrators of color and serves on the National Advisory Committee for the Teaching Artists Guild. She is a 2017-2018 Marshall Memorial Fellow, received the Guild’s 2017 Service Award, and is a 2015 recipient of the Americans for the Arts Emerging Leader Award.
An interesting and critical eye on philanthropy can come from different perspectives and that is what “Liberate Philanthropy,” a blog series, published on Medium, precisely does.
After a yearlong process of introspection and conversations with grantee partners, the Surdna Foundation recently announced its refined program strategy, "Radical Imagination for Racial Justice."