All Events
Youth Event
Stories from Here, There, and Everywhere! Michael D. McCarty
MCC Lounge
Storytelling preserves and brings to life our history, traditions, and ideas. Bring your family to hear wonderful folk tales from Nigeria, Botswana, Egypt, and Rwanda told by master storyteller Michael D. McCarty. Michael is an energetic and enthusiastic storyteller of African, African-American and International Folk tales as well as historical, spiritual, and personal tales, that inform, educate, inspire, and amuse.
Resilient Love
An Evening of Spoken Word Sunni Patterson
MCC Theater
Sunni Patterson is a New Orleans based poet who combines the heritage, culture, and traditions of her hometown with a spiritual worldview to create powerful music and poetry. She is poetry in action; she is a political wordsmith. Her words capture a culture, unite people, and shed light on issues some would find uncomfortable or un-newsworthy. Most of all, she is enlightening and speaks her truth, giving other women the power and strength to do so as well. She is 'a Black woman warrior poet doing [her] work - [here] to ask you, are you doing yours?'. Sunni Patterson captures sunlight and radiates it in her being, in her words, and in her action.
Cup of Culture
Jurakán: Nación en Resistencia (Nation in Resistance)
MCC Theater
Jurakán: Nation in Resistance documents the historical struggle of Puerto Rico, a Caribbean nation that refuses to disappear. It is narrated by 40+ boricuas- artists, experts, politicians and activists- of different perspectives. The documentary has been praised by prominent Puerto Rican figures like Nelson Denis, Blanca Eró and Congressman Luis V. Gutiérrez.
Post film discussion with the director, Gonzalo Mazzini, and the creative producer, Rosa Emmanuelli Gutiérrez. Together they ventured on a journey to answer the daunting question, what does it mean to be Puerto Rican? Jurakán is the riveting result of their search for answers. 1h 33m
Race Matters
Defending the Hood: Fighting Back Against Gentrification Alejandra Melgoza, Gaby Hernandez, Jorge Cabanillas, Jonathan Gomez Facilitated by George Ygarza
MCC Lounge
As inequality continues to grow all across the country, many communities are contending with the effects of tech booms, new-age trends and progress. Those on the periphery understand these as euphemisms, disguising violent processes of displacement, marginalization and erasure. This panel will bring together members of various communities that have confronted gentrification as we discuss strategy while looking at the ways in which these local battles are part of a broader system. Alejandra Melgoza is a community organizer with Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE) working for tenants rights. Gaby Hernandez is a licensed clinical social worker and works with Chicanos Unidos fighting gentrification. Jorge Cabanillas is a member of Queens Neighborhoods United, a New York grassroots organization doing anti-gentrification work. Jonathan D. Gomez is a faculty member in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at San Jose State University, and examines the racial, spatial, and gender dimensions of social space in the postindustrial city. The facilitator, George Ygarza is a PhD student in the Global Studies department at UCSB.
