What’s Your Story?

What are your defining moments? Who has tried to define you? How do you preserve worth? These were the ideas being communicated at the fifth and final installment of the Teaching Artists Guild’s (TAG) program Youth Right Now = Truth Right Now, a series of BIPOC Youth Led Professional Development Workshops that give insight into what helps build creative, nurturing and thriving environments for young artists. 

As there are very few opportunities for teaching artists to learn from young people, showcasing BIPOC youth leaders demonstrates that centering the work means recognizing the injustices that have been built into our system.

For this particular workshop our youth leads, Xandra Yugto and Flavio Cruz-Hernandez, reflected on their past. Here, participants were invited to understand their approach to self-exploration including why evoking a sense of control and awareness are crucial during childhood development. 

A Fixed Ride

Think back to the Game of Life, a board game that simulated a person's travels through their life, specifically the car piece that held the family. What were the children doing? Nothing. 

A typical childhood is built upon the notion of following everything you are told. From one's guardians to the media, the youth are inundated with messages that can deconstruct their sense of power. Though adult:youth relationships have the potential for balance, many default towards adultism where our older counterparts capture the upper hand within power differentials to define their heavy influence in the relationship. This mindset hinders emotional intelligence, ultimately, creating a disconnect where the adult counterpart lacks empathy to understand the youth’s perspective. To compensate, youth either seek new role models and/or look to themselves for support.

With the status quo not ideal, do you blame the youth for detaching? 

Be Inspired and Inspire Others

Exposure is what Xandra is thankful for. 

The Digital Age came with enhanced representation as individuals became better connected, not just with their communities but communities across the globe. However, decades passed and individuals, such as Xandra, are discovering the perpetual problems that have calcified in our societal fabrics. Regardless of the transcendence in technology this makes the case to continue the fight against systems, which recently has made progress as the United States was challenged in 2020 with the racial pandemic.

Continuing on the topic of race, Xandra asked the audience in 30-seconds to name all the Asian Women Directors they knew. How many do you know (...without looking at the link)? For Xandra, the lack of representation created complications where celebrating her culture seemed limited. Imagine seeing tv/film that featured constant cancellations (i.e. Lovecraft Country or Kim’s Convenience) and/or misrepresentation by individuals outside the BIPOC/LGBTQIA+ identity while preserving normalized content. These scenarios can convey the message that these stories are not worth being told. However, like herself, many pioneers are willing to challenge the status quo. For example Alice Wu, creator of the film Half of It. Wu’s work inspired Xandra to believe in her story, that she too could be the next AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) woman director. Already Xandra drove her creative powers and resilience to make a short film regardless of obstacles.

Though we all have our own stories, reflecting on these experiences makes us self-aware. Being aware of self allows our experiences to be more meaningful. So, when you think of your character and the environments you inhabit, how do you describe your story? 

Reclaiming My Time

Flavio was unsure of his story. 

Thinking about expectations, both direct and indirect, they can cause debilitation. Humans bare expectations from ourselves and others, which can provide discomfort when you are not “meeting” them. For Flavio, he wanted to be more invested in life, therefore, understanding what he needed to be successful. 

From his research, this is a sampling of his findings:

  • Use emotions to be productive, often we see/hear things that give us emotional fuel

  • Methods to invoking our emotions 

    • Dopamine

    • Inspiration 

    • Nostalgia

    • Product of Visions 

  • Two-Minds - The truth is that we need more than willpower or over-exaggerated reasoning to achieve real self-control. Our brains are separated into two parts with respect to consciousness: the thinking brain and the feeling brain. The thinking brain is objective and factual, while the feeling brain is subjective and relative. To make effective decisions across the board, we must utilize both aspects of conscious thinking. Otherwise, we’d be ridiculously cold and calculated with rationality, or an emotional train wreck that ignores objective truth and indulges every impulsive desire. Manson’s concept of the Classic Assumption rings true in all of our lives. All of us—Stoics, philosophers, self-help seekers, and regular folks—have misunderstood what our emotions can do for us. We’ve all been caught up in the battle between the thinking brain and the feeling brain. While logical reasoning certainly has its value in some parts of every decision, it cannot be 100% relied upon for every single decision. There’s a reason why feeling emotion has survived thousands of years of evolution and natural selection. It’s because we need it. We can’t successfully interact with others or live meaningful lives without the ability to feel.

  • Positive and Negative Distractions - Ask yourself questions…

    • Does this help me grow?

    • Will I learn anything?

    • Does it make me happy?

    • How long will it take?

    • Will I be satisfied afterwards 

A workshop participant asked him about his rationale to flip 180 without being prompted. Falvio replied that by reflecting on past family experiences that resembled his disinvestment, it guided him to do things differently where he took responsibility. He realized that being great meant you had to put the work in and plan ahead.

He jokes that he now has an 8-year plan.

This series was made possible by collaboration between the Teaching Artists Guild, Arts Corps and Memphis Music Initiative and the funding of Panta Rhea Fund and the Fenwick Foundation.

Youth Leads

Xandra Yugto (she/her) is a queer teen Filipina storyteller who hopes to empower underrepresented voices & to share her Reality with the world. Her passion lies within the arts, especially film & music. Xandra currently has three self-directed short films out: gift a piece of mind, To Press Play, & our Reality (accessible on her youtube channel).  She would love to contribute to many meaningful stories that people will remember for years in the future. 

Flavio Cruz-Hernandez (he/him) is a Mexian-American visual artist living in the Pacific Northwest and attends Shorecrest High School. 

TAG Facilitator

Adam Jabari Jefferson is an audio-visual griot and teaching artist. He is the founder and director of PhotOrganic Studio. Jabari plays with word, sound, and image in melanin-rich meditations. He received art commissions and awards from Midtown Square, King County, 4Culture, Seattle Arts & Culture, Artist Trust and ACKHO. Adam previously produced videos for National Geographic Magazine and Out of Eden Walk. Adam is a proud alumnus of Howard University (BBA, ‘05) and Northwestern University (MSJ, ‘12). In between degrees, he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cabo Verde, and helped launch One Step Away newspaper in Philadelphia. Jabari was born in Chicago and raised by a village.  


Heleya de Barros (Seattle, WA) served formerly as Executive Director of Association of Teaching Artists in New York where she developed an online professional development series and hosted an annual award ceremony. She has worked as Education Director at Arts Corps and with as a teaching artist with Lincoln Center Theater, McCarter Theater Center, New York Theatre Workshop, The Center for Arts Education, People’s Theatre Project, Young Audiences New York, The Geffen Playhouse, The Los Angeles Music Center, The Orange County Performing Arts Center, Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences, CRE Outreach, and 24th Street Theatre. She was a recipient of the 2015 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Creative Curricula grant in partnership with City as School and is Co-Chair of the New York City Arts in Education Roundtable Teaching Artist Affairs Committee. Education: BA, Theatre, University of Southern California; MA, Educational Theatre, New York University; British American Drama Academy, classical theatre.

ProBono ASL

Natanael

Bree K. Jones