August 3rd MAPP: Free the Children (Liberando a los niños/as)

As part of the Mission Arts & Performance Project, join us at Red Poppy Art House for an afternoon and evening of focused resistance as we sing and write our demands for freedom of the migrant children held in captivity at the U.S./Mexico Border.

It is also our goal to spread hope that when people are united we can move mountains. We will continue applying pressure to get ICE out of our communities and to release the thousands of innocent children held captive in inhumane conditions by the USA Trump Administration’s zero tolerance policy.

Throughout the evening we will share updates about actions to take and events to attend in support of our at-risk immigrant communities.

Join us in writing and singing songs of freedom for the children.

This evening is curated and emceed by award-winning journalist Chelis Lopez (see bio below).

* * *

Como parte del MAPP, únase a nosotros en Red Poppy Art House para compartir una tarde y una noche de resistencia enfocada a cantar y escribir nuestras demandas para la libertad de los niños/as migrantes mantenidos en cautiverio en la frontera de EE. UU. / México.

Nuestro objetivo es también difundir la esperanza de que cuando nos unimos podemos mover montañas. Seguiremos presionando para sacar a ICE de nuestras comunidades y liberar a miles de niños/as inocentes que se encuentran cautivos en condiciones inhumanas como resultado de la política de cero tolerancia de la administración Trump.

A lo largo de la noche, compartiremos información sobre acciones y eventos para apoyar a nuestras comunidades inmigrantes en riesgo.

Únase a nosotros para escribir y cantar canciones de libertad para nuestros/as niños/as.

Esta noche es curada y dirigida por la galardonada periodista Chelis López (ver biografía a continuación).

This program is made possible thanks to generous funding by the California Arts Council Local Impact Grant.

 
*Between each act, there will be an update on actions and events to support our at-risk immigrant communities.

 
Launched in 2003, the Mission Arts & Performance Project (MAPP) is a homegrown bi-monthly, multidisciplinary, intercultural happening that takes place in the Mission District of San Francisco. On the first Saturday of every even month of the year, the MAPP transforms ordinary spaces, such as private garages, gardens, living rooms, studios, street corners, and small businesses into pop-up performance and exhibition sites for a day/night of intimate-scale artistic and cultural exchange among a kaleidoscope of individuals and communities.

 
Carlos Cartagena was born in El Salvador. His formative years during his youth were in the 80s when his country was beginning to bleed incurably from the wounds of war. A restless desire to make art was always with him, and this innate drive—as well as the socio-political condition of his country—induced him, against all odds, to abandon an academic career and take up art not only as a profession but also as an alternative form of resistance to the oppressive regime. In November of 1989, Cartagena came to the U.S. First, he worked with CODICES, a group of artists working in support of Salvadoran culture, and then, for five years, with the artists at the KALA Art Institute in Berkeley where he learned techniques of etching and printmaking. Today he is working independently in painting, printmaking, installations, and mixed media. The gentrification of San Francisco knocked on his door in 2016, and since then has been moving from one place to another.
 
Chile y Limón is a band from San Francisco that plays folk and popular music from Mexico, Central and South America. For this trio of contagious rhythms, soaring melodies, seductive harmonies, and poetic lyrics, lead vocalist and flutist Martha Rodriguez-Salazar is joined by accordionist and backup vocalist Jennifer Peringer and bassist Leo Suarez.
 
 
 
Leticia Hernández-Linares is a poet, interdisciplinary artist, and educator. She is the author of Mucha Muchacha (“Too Much Girl”). Widely published, she has presented her poem-songs throughout the country and in El Salvador. She is a long-time community worker and Mission resident, and she teaches in the College of Ethnic Studies at SFSU.
 
 
 
Liliana Herrera is a singer-songwriter, voiceover artist, and cultural worker hailing from California’s southern borderlands. Inspired by the indomitable musical spirit of her close-knit family and more than 20 years of artistic collaborations in the Bay Area and beyond—including El Teatro Campesino, Teatro Sabor, Golden Gate Opera, Opera Cultura, Brava for Women in the Arts, and La Peña Cultural Center among others—Herrera’s musical roots flourish in the embodiment, transcendence, and reflection of the times. Whether it’s velvety torch songs, scintillating boleros, sultry blues, or riveting cumbias, she sings them with abandon. Her recent recordings include Norte del Rio with Oakland-based cumbia dub band Candelaria and her debut EP, Late Night Taco Stand Music, which celebrates the contributions of immigrants and her bicultural spirit inspired by Chicana soul.
 
Francisco Herrera is a theologian, cultural worker, and singer-songwriter. He has produced seven albums—including two for children’s music in Spanish—and writes scores for film and theater, working with producers such as Greg Landau, the late Saul Landau, and Haskel Wexler. Herrera has shared the stage with Jon Fromer, Pete Seeger, Emma’s Revolution at mass actions as School of America’s Watch (up to 22,000 people), and the Battle for Seattle, with over 250,000 people shutting down the WTO in 1999. His latest album, Honor Migrante, crosses physical and musical borders to expose the grace and beauty of the migrant community with a rocking sound that brings together regional music from Mexico and the U.S., as well as a “Chicano soul” style that permeates his eclectic choice of music.
 
DíaPaSon (“day for son” and Spanish diapasón for “fretboard”) is an ensemble of artists who specialize in Mexican folk music and dance, particularly the son jarocho. Its artists are active in the rich sonero community of the Bay Area and have collectively and individually studied the son art form with internationally renowned master artists of son jarocho. Under the artistic direction of María de la Rosa, DíaPaSon promotes and preserves the cultural treasures of Mexico by creating programs and projects that reflect its folkloric traditions. Since 2010, DíaPaSon—once known as SonRisas—has appeared throughout California, in Colorado and Mexico, and has joined the National Performance Network (NPN) touring roster after completion of new works commissioned by the NPN Creation Fund in 2016.
 
Chelis López is an award-winning Mexican journalist who has lived in San Francisco since 1996. For almost ten years she hosted the national radio show Línea Abierta at Radio Bilingüe, the National Latino Public Radio Network where she interviewed and produced diverse stories including the live broadcast of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, an annual celebration of communities and cultures in the U.S. and around the world presented annually in Washington, D.C. She is the host and producer of two Spanish-language shows on KPOO 89.5FM in San Francisco—Pájaro Latinoamericano and Andanzas—where she explores and offers news, comments, and interviews with newsmakers and artists throughout Latin America. López is also the San Francisco correspondent for Rompeviento TV in Mexico and hosts locally at Marin TV.

 
Time: 3:00pm event
Admission: Free

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