Mangos With Chili Queer Borderlands 2008 Tour SF Kick Off Show
the floating cabaret of queer and trans of color sweets, sweats,
visions, dreams and nightmares. Gloria Anzaldua's queer and trans
children, fucking the border, living to tell.
 Friday, October 10, 2008
 8:00pm - 11:00pm
 Mama Calizo's Voice Factory Theater
 1519 Mission St. (at Van Ness) , San Francisco, CA
mangos.with.chili@gmail.com
myspace.com/mangoswithchili

Mangos With Chili, North America's only annual touring cabaret of
queer and trans people of color artists, kicks off our 2008 Queer
Borderlands tour! Bay Area, come thrill to the burlesque, spoken word,
hiphop, drag and dance of brilliant QTPOC artists, lovers and fighters
and send us off on our two week, 13 city tour with your love!

Featuring:
Chica Boom
Nico Dacumos
Qwo-Li Driskill
Zuleikha Mahmood
Ms. Cherry Galette
Nar
Vixen Noir
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

$10-$15, no one turned away for lack of funds.
For more information: myspace.com/mangoswithchili

Founded in 2006 by us, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Ms. Cherry
Gallete, Mangos With Chili began as an annual touring cabaret of queer
and trans people of color performance artists. Our breakout 2007 tour
took 8 queer and trans performers of color to cities and stages
throughout the Northeastern United States and Canada.

Our 2008 Queer Borderlands tour will take us down the California coast
and across the Southwest from October 10-26. Featured artists will
create new work addressing the themes of border transgression,
migrations, deportations, relocation, displacement, legacy and the
struggle to create new worlds.

AND: for East Bay folks who don't want to cross the bridge- we know
how you are (cuz we are you!) and we've got a SECOND Oakland show just
for you, featuring the same lineup plus the amazing Tre Vasquez.

Monday, October 13, 2008
East Side Arts Alliance
2277 International, Oakland, CA 94609
8 PM
$10-$15 sliding, no one turned away.

Check out our Cali-wide and New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado dates on
our website,  myspace.com/mangoswithchili, send us love and money, and
spread the word!!

Mangos With Chili is a fiscally sponsored project of CounterPULSE:
www.counterpulse.org

Launch Party!
The Revolution Starts At Home: Confronting Partner Abuse in Activist Communities
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
7:30 PM
Modern Times Books
888 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA

Featuring readings by

Zuleikha Mahmood
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Gina deVries

Free! Copies of the zine will be for sale.

Two years in the making, this amazing zine/book (it's 113 full-sized
pages!) explores the nitty-gritty of what community accountability
strategies look like in real life, and describes many ways to build
safety from violence and walk towards justice and accountability in
our communities. Featuring writing by CARA, UBUNTU, Philly's Pissed,
Mango Tribe, Ana Maurine Lara, Peggy Munson and many other amazing
contributors, the launch of this long-awaited, life-saving zine is not
to be missed.

Come for readings, discussion, cupcakes and celebration! Co-sponsored
by INCITE! Bay Area
and CUAV (Communities United Against
Violence). For more information, email brownstargirl@gmail.com

For Immediate Release: August 9, 2008
Mangos With Chili Queer Borderlands 2008 Tour takes the Southwest October 10-24!

Mangos with Chili: the floating cabaret of QTPOC bliss, dreams sweat, sweets and nightmares, is North America's only annual traveling cabaret of queer and trans people of color performance artists. Every year we select 8 diverse QTPOC performance artists and hit a different region of North America, touring colleges, queer of color bars and small town community centers, offering two weeks of unforgettable performance in celebration of our lives, stories, survival, and the legacies we are creating for future generations of queer and trans people of color.

For the 2008 Queer Borderlands Mangos With Chili tour, artists will create new work addressing the themes of border crossing, migrations, deportations, location and legacy through creating work that answers the question: As Gloria Anzaldua's children, what does it mean to be queer and trans brown people living on colonized indigenous land, transgressing borders in many facets of our lives, and being stopped by immigration, while loving, fighting and struggling to create new worlds?

Our History: Founded in 2006 by sister femme vixen performance artists Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Ms. Cherry Gallete, our breakout 2007 tour took 8 queer and trans performers of color to 8 cities in 12 days, raising a $13,000 budget through grassroots funding and door revenue. Mangos with Chili has received positive media coverage from Bitch and Make/Shift magazines (making Bitch's Summer 2008, "Bitchlist: Things We Love") as well as in independent and campus media, as well as raves from audience members for reflecting the lives and stories of queer and trans people of color. We create community, build bridges and foster cross-cultural dialogue by presenting breathtaking shows featuring queer and trans of color artists creating high-caliber work that we tour to different geographic regions each year, hitting urban areas and college campuses, as well as the occasional small town. Sharing much-needed and little heard queer and trans of color stories brings together queer and trans people of color out from isolation, helping QTPOC build networks of love, support and survival.

Our 2008 Lineup Includes: Veronica C. Combs/Vixen Noir multi-media performance artist and founder of LiquidFire Productions; NaR the queer Arabic Hip Hop duo; First Nations, Two Spirit Poet Qwo-Li Driskill; Chicana burlesque starlet Chica Boom; mixed Afghan writer and zine maker Zuleikha Mahmood; Southwest based Two Spirit MC Tre Vasquez; mixed Chicano and Filipino writer and performance artist Nico Dacumos; and tour founders Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Ms. Cherry Gallete. All are extraordinary artists and trailblazers in their own right with impressive work and credits to their names.

Co-founder/ Co-Artistic Director Bios

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a queer Sri Lankan writer, performer and femme of color powerhouse. The author of Consensual Genocide (TSAR), she has toured North America and Sri Lanka multiple times. Her work has been anthologized in Homelands: Women's Journeys Across Race, Time and Place, We Don't Need Another Wave, Colonize This!, With a Rough Tongue, Without a Net, Dangerous Families, Brazen Femme, Femme, and A Girl's Guide to Taking Over the World. She writes for Bitch, Colorlines, Hyphen and Make/Shift magazines. From 2003-2007 she produced Toronto's acclaimed Browngirlworld queer/trans of color spoken word series and was one of the co-creators of Toronto's Asian Arts Freedom School, a writing and radical Asian history program for APIA youth. Newly relocated to Oakland after running away from America for a decade, she is completing her MFA in creative nonfiction at Mills College, touring her one-woman show, Grown Woman Show, and finishing her second and third books, Dirty River and Love Cake. She is a keynote speaker at Femme 2008.

Ms. Cherry Gallete is a Moroccan and Chicana dancer, burlesque artist and producer committed to the telling of post-colonial fairy tales of modern resistance that celebrate queer desires, histories, survivals, migrations, and revolutions through movement and performance. Known for presenting genre pushing work based in sultry, brave, sacred, and profane fusions of traditional Afro-Brazilian, Arabic and Latin dance forms with burlesque and ultra-gay cabaret, Cherry feels blessed to have had opportunity to present work as a solo artist in theaters, festivals, cabarets, clubs, and varied stages across North America. Cherry has curated productions for the Femme 2008 Conference in Chicago, and for local arts institutions Galeria de la Raza and QueLaCo in addition to producing shows and presenting work independently on both sides of the Bay Bridge. She teaches dance and movement liberation workshops built around decolonizing and finding home in the body, and her work is grounded in making community-oriented performance and putting music and movement back in the bodies of her people through creating a dance movement that encompasses all experiences, ages, genders and bodies.

2008 Performer Bios:
Vixen Noir is a San Francisco-based erotic performance artist, burlesque dancer, actress, poetess, contemporary and jazz dancer, singer as well as director, producer, choreographer, erotic workshop facilitator and filmmaker. She has been wowing audiences internationally with her sexy jaw-dropping performances for over 17 years! She integrates her extensive dance and theatre background to create performances that range from sublime to raucous, raunchy to seductive, titillating to beautiful, and that are artistically compelling and visually stimulating. Her work embodies a commitment to claim erotic power, build bridges across racial, social and economic divides and celebrate the diversity of gender expression. Vixen's performances and productions are unapologetically sexual and inspire others to revel in their own sexual power. One of Vixen's most notable claims is as founder and former Artistic Director of liquidFIRE Productions, a San Francisco-based non-profit organization dedicated to the authentic representation of lesbians and queer women of color on stage (1997 – 2006).

Nar is a queer Arab hip hop crew, featuring a girl-boy emcee duo. Both emcees have roots in the mountains of Lebanon. Mazen was born there and moved to the states as a political refugee at the age of 5, fleeing the Israeli invasion. Tru Bloo came up in Las Vegas, NV as a first-generation daughter of Syrian-Lebanese immigrants. NaR means "fire" in Arabic and describes our deep passion for social change and revolution. We believe in humanity and the liberation of all oppressed peoples. Although we are the first queer Arab hip hop crew, our lyrics focus primarily on greater political issues--not merely the eradication of homophobia, although that is one of our many struggles. We are committed to music, as it bridges cultural, social, and economic gaps in pursuit of the revolution-- a Revolution to bring Social Justice to all!!

Qwo-Li Driskill is a Cherokee Two-Spirit/Queer writer, scholar, educator, activist, and performer also of African, Irish, Lenape, Lumbee, and Osage ascent and the author of Walking with Ghosts: Poems. Hir artistic and scholarly work appears in numerous publications, and s/he performs and facilitates workshops at events across Turtle Island. Qwo-Li grew up in rural Colorado and attended the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley before moving to Seattle in 1998 to attend Antioch University. S/he is currently an assistant professor at Texas A&M University.

Queer Chicana starlet Chica Boom takes off more than just her sombrero. This bordertown Chica organizes with communites of color to destabilize the gringo heteroempire by day and tantalizes audiences with her vibrant drag and strip-tease by night. Senorita Chica Boom has been seductively weaving her cultural and sexual identity through burlesque, alternative dance, theatre and street performance across nation. Chica Boom's provocative posturing shakes and breaks the mold of submissive mestiza. She is the quintessential Xicana Marimacha Mistress, she'll dance her way into your corazon and leave you caliente! Chica was crowned with the prestigious title of Ms. Gay Latina 2005 and 2006 and has appeared on numerous publications featured not only as a burlesque performer and also for her contributions to radical woman of color organizing. She is currently a member of the national steering committee of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence.

Zuleikha Mahmood is a queer mixed Afghan writer who lives in Oakland. Her zines include the wombs and the browns, and letters forged by the daughter putting on her scarf in a masjid parking lot. She's featured on Muslim Wakeup's Sex in the Umma column and has work forthcoming in Kohl, an anthology of Afghan American women's fiction. Committed to documenting the lives of Muslim drop-outs, fuck-ups, queers, and whores, she curated the 2004 Queer Muslim Film Festival in Amherst, Massachusetts and has organized readings and performances for several writers, including Jennifer Tseng, and I Was Born with Two Tongues. She is a VONA alum and a proud femme shark

Nico Dacumos teaches high school in Oakland and performs and writes in his spare time. He has performed at San Francisco PRIDE, City Lights Books, and Highways Performance Space in Los Angeles. Nico also develops workshops exploring race and sexuality. Workshops have been presented for UC Davis, Mount Holyoke and Smith Colleges, Sistersong, Georgians for Choice, and Femme Conference 2006. His written work appears in the anthology Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity. Stalk him at http://nicoelrico.blogspot.com.

Tre Vasquez is a two spirit rappero from the 'border' lands of arizonaztlan. He is an MC by nature and uses hip & spoken word as means to mobilze and inspire uprise towards FREEDOM. He is known for his work featured in shows such as the national Sex Workers Art Show Tour, "Rockin' the Macho Cockless," and "Queer MCs for the Straight Hip Hop" but really he could be any vato you pass on the street. He is a masculine female-born gender resister down to bang on the colonial system by existing true to his creation.

Tour Schedule:
Friday, October 10, 2008: Voice Factory Theater, San Francisco, CA
Saturday, October 11, 2008, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA
Sunday, October 12, 2008, driving day
Monday, October 13, EastSide Community Arts, Oakland, CA (TBC)
Tuesday, October 14, 2008, UC Davis, Davis, CA
Wednesday, October 15, 2008, workshop, UC Berkeley, Poetry for the People, Berkeley, CA
Thursday, October 16, 2008, UC Santa Cruz. CA (TBC)
Friday, October 17, 2008, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA (TBC)
Saturday, October 18, 2008, UCSD, San Diego(TBC)
Monday, October 20, 2008, driving
Tuesday, October 21, 2008, Tucson, AZ location TBA
Wednesday, October 22, 2008, Taala Hooghan Indigenous Youth Center, Flagstaff, AZ
Thursday, October 23, 2008, FireWomyn, Albuquerque, NM
Friday, October 24, Santa Fe, NM, Wise Fool Cabaret
Saturday, October 25, Denver University, Denver, CO(TBC)
TBC= to be confirmed, ie booking is in progress but we are still locking down exact dates.

What People Are Saying About Mangos With Chili:
"I went to the Toronto show last night and it was brilliant. To see women and men empowered by their bodies and minds rather then being restrained by them was remarkable. I've never been to an event like this before, but I'll be sure to be there next year! Thanks to those who organized the night and even more to those who shared their stories and lives."
"It was a major treat meeting you the other night, you and the rest of the fam did a brilliant, fabulous, extra incredible performance that blew all of our minds here in Philly and then some. I left taking so much with me. Thank you for sharing your concerns, passions, dreams, pursuits, personal experiences, and the like, making a resounding statement to me that I'm not alone in a place where it's easy to slide back into insular spaces."

"Your show last night was so wonderful: powerful, intelligent, thrilling, sexy, warm, biting, insightful..."

"I hope you felt the love on Saturday night at Buddies. As usual the show was moving ( I cried) and inspiring (dreams can become reality.)"

"So powerful, I feel like our ancestors felt it."


Press:

Bitch Magazine, "Bitchlist: Things We Love", Issue 40 (Summer 2008)
Make/Shift Magazine Issue 2: www.makeshiftmag.org
Swarthmore Phoenix: http://phoenix.swarthmore.edu/2007-04-05/living/17159
Asia Pacific Forum: http://www.asiapacificforum.org/news-detail.php?news_id=39
Video and audio clips available upon request

For more information, bookings or donations, please contact:

Co-Artistic Directors, Mangos With Chili
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Ms. Cherry Gallete
mangos.with.chili@gmail.co

FEMME SHARK MANIFESTO!


FEMME SHARKS DON'T EAT OUR OWN.
FEMME SHARKS LIKE TO EAT THOUGH
FEMME SHARKS RECOGNIZE THAT FEMMES COME IN ALL KINDS OF SIZES AND EACH KIND IS LUSCIOUS. WE WORK TOWARDS LOVING OUR CURVY, FAT, SKINNY, SUPERSIZE, THICK, DISABLED, BLACK AND BROWN FINE-ASS BODIES EVERY DAY. WE REALIZE THAT LOVING OURSELVES IN A RACIST/SEXIST/HOMO/TRANSPHOBIC/ABLIST/CLASSIST SYSTEM IS AN EVERY DAY ACT OF WAR AGAINST THAT SYSTEM.
FEMME SHARKS DON'T THINK ANOREXIA IS CUTE.
WE THINK EATING A BIG-ASS MEAL IS SEXY.
WE SAY SCREW "HEIGHT WEIGHT PROPORTIONATE PLEASE" IN CRAIGSLIST WOMEN SEEKING WOMEN ADS AND IN LIFE.

WE HAVE BIG MOUTHS AND WE KNOW HOW TO USE
THEM. DON'T FUCK WITH US! ASK US IF WE WANT TO FUCK THOUGH !


FEMME SHARKS WILL RECLAIM THE POWER AND DIGNITY OF FEMALENESS BY ANY MEANS NECCESARY.
WE'RE GIRLS BLOWN UP, TURNED INSIDE OUT AND REMIXED.


FEMME SHARKS ARE OVER WHITE QUEERS OBLIVIOUSNESS TO QUEER OF COLOR, TWO SPIRIT AND TRANS OF COLOR LIVES.
WE KNOW THAT WE ARE A CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE
WE'RE OVER WHITE FEMMES AND BUTCHES WHO THINK THAT FEMME ONLY COMES IN THE COLOR OF BARBIE.
WE'RE OVER BUTCHES AND BOYS AND OTHER FEMMES TELLING US WHAT WE NEED TO DO, WEAR OR BE IN ORDER TO BE "REALLY FEMME."


FEMME SHARKS RECOGNIZE THAT FEMMES, BUTCHES, GENDERQUEER AND TRANS PEOPLE
HAVE BEEN IN COMMUNITIES OF COLOR SINCE FOREVER.
THAT BEFORE COLONIZATION WE WERE SEEN AS SACRED
AND WE WERE SOME OF THE FIRST FOLKS MOST VIOLENTLY ATTACKED
WHEN OUR LANDS WERE INVADED AND COLONIZED.
FEMME SHARKS WON'T REST UNTIL WE RECLAIM OUR POSITIONS
AS BELOVED FAMILY WITHIN OUR COMMUNITIES.




FEMME SHARKS AREN'T JUST DIMEPIECES AND TROPHY WIVES
FUCK THAT!
WE MIGHT BE YOUR GIRL,
BUT WE'RE OUR OWN FEMMES.
WE RECOGNIZE THAT FEMMES ARE LEADERS OF OUR COMMUNITIES.
WE HOLD IT DOWN, CALM YOUR TEARS, ORGANIZE THE RALLY, VISIT YOU IN JAIL, GET CHILDCARE HOOKED UP, LOAN YOU TWENTY DOLLARS.
FEMMES ARE WELDERS, AFTERSCHOOL TEACHERS, ABORTION CLINIC WORKERS, STRIPPERS, WRITERS, FACTORY WORKERS, MOMS, REVOLUTIONARIES DEDICATED TO TAKING THE SYSTEM THE HELL DOWN SO WE CAN BE FREE!


FEMMES ARE LEADERS IN TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS/ DEFENDING OUR QUEER AND TRANS OF COLOR COMMUNITIES.
WE USED OUR STILETTOS AS WEAPONS AT STONEWALL.
WE WERE THE TRANSWOMEN WHO FOUGHT BACK AT THE COMPTON
CAFETERIA
WE'RE THE GIRLS WHO STARE DOWN ASSHOLES STARING AT OUR LOVERS AND FRIENDS ON THE SUBWAY.
WE WALK EACH OTHER HOME
ACT CRAZY ON THE BUS TO GET ASSHOLES TO MOVE AWAY
AND KNOW HOW TO BREAK SOMEONE'S LEGS
WE SHARE WHAT WE KNOW.


FEMME SHARKS STAND UP FOR THE NEW JERSEY FOUR AND EVERY OTHER QUEER AND TRANS PERSON OF COLOR IN THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX FOR DEFENDING OUR LIVES.
WE BELIEVE IN SELF-DEFENSE AND SELF-DETIRMINATION.
WE BELIEVE THAT WE HAVE A RIGHT TO DEFEND OURSELVES AND OUR COMMUNITIES
AGAINST ANY KIND OF ATTACK-
FROM ASSHOLES ON THE STREET
TO RACIST WHITE CLUB OWNERS WHO WANT THREE PIECES OF ID
TO FOLKS WHO INSIST THAT WE'RE STRAIGHT.
TO PEOPLE WHO TAKE OUR LAND.

WE REMEMBER OUR DEAD- SAKIA GUNN, GWEN ARAUJO, AND MANY OTHER QUEER AND TRANS POC WHO DIED BECAUSE OF RACIST, HOMO/TRANSPHOBIC VIOLENCE
NOT AS A POLITICAL STATEMENT
BUT AS WOMEN WE LOVED IN REAL LIFE
WOMEN WHO COULD'VE BEEN US OR OUR LOVES.


WE ARE NOT GOING TO BE LEFT OUT OF "THE STRUGGLE."
NOT THIS TIME.
WE'RE NOT JUST A PRETTY FACE.


FEMMES GODDAMN WELL KNOW HOW TO STRAP IT .. THE OIL IN THE CAR AND PUT UP SHELVES.
WE CAN DO ANY GODDAMN THING WE WANT!
THAT'S WHY WE'RE FEMME SHARKS!
FEMME IS NOT THE SAME THING AS BEING OUR MOMS
FEMMES ARE BEAUTIFUL AND STRONG WHEN WE BOTTOM
AND WE'RE HOT AS HELL WHEN WE TOP
OUR BOTTOMING AND TOPPPING ARE BOTH GIFTS TO BE MET WITH RESPECT.
WHEN WE TAKE OUR LOVERS FIST ALL THE WAY INSIDE
ASK FOR WHAT WE WANT
BE THE BEST DIRTY GIRL
OR MAKE OUR LOVERS FLIP
WE'RE A FUCKING MIRACLE.
IN THE WORDS OF JILL SCOTT, "YOU GOTTA DO RIGHT BY ME. IT'S MANDATORY, BABY."


FEMME SHARKS SHOP AT ROSS, FOXY LADY, VALUE VILLAGE, THE HM $5 RACK, TORRID AND THE DOLLAR STORE , AND KNOW HOW TO SHOPLIFT
WE CONCOCT BRILLIANT STRATEGIES TO LOOK FINE
ON TEN DOLLARS OR LESS.
WE'RE ONLY "INVISIBLE" IF YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO LOOK FOR US.


WE TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER
RECOGNIZE THAT FEMMES ARE EACH OTHERS' WEALTH
HOS BEFORE BROS, ALWAYS!
FEMME SOLIDARITY AND LOVE FOR EACH OTHER
IS A REVOLUTIONARY FORCE
WE BELIEVE IN GIRLS LOVING GIRLS, RESPECTING EACH OTHER'S BRILLIANCE
NOT FIGHTING OVER BOIS OR BUTCHES
NOT TRYING TO BE THE ALPHA FEMME
WE'RE ANTI-DRAMA
BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF COMMUNITIES THAT HEAL HURT, APOLOGIZE, LISTEN TO EACH OTHER AND MAKE THINGS RIGHT.
WE BELIEVE IN BUILDING OUR QTPOC COMMUNITIES STRONG



FEMME SHARKS WERE THERE WHEN FRIDA KAHLO HOOKED UP WITH HER
GIRLFRIENDS
WHEN JOAN NESTLE, CHRYSTOS, JEWELLE GOMEZ, ALEXIS DE VEUX, SYLVIA RIVERA, DOROTHY ALLISON, MINNIE BRUCE PRATT AND AMBER HOLLIBAUGH MADE QUEER FEMME HISTORY
WHEN ZAPATISTA WOMEN HOOKED UP

WHEN OUR COUSINS WERE MAKING OUT IN THE WOMEN'S SECTION OF THE MASJID
WHEN OUR GRANDMAS AND QUEER AUNTIES SNUCK OUT AT NIGHT
DIDN'T GET MARRIED TIL LATE- OR AT ALL
HAS A BEST GIRLFRIEND
AND STOOD UP FOR HER
FEMME SHARKS WERE THERE.


FEMME SHARKS ARE IN THE BODIES OF COUNTLESS SEX WORKERS, NEIGHBORDS AND LADIES WAITING FOR THE BUS AND IN THE LINEUP AT CENTURY 21.
AT RIIS BEACH, FUNKASIA, LOVERGIRL NYC, BUTTA, MANGO, MANHATTAN'S, DESILICIOUS, AND BIBI!
FEMME SHARKS LIVE ON THE REZ, IN CAPETOWN, NEWARK, OAKLAND!!!!!, THE SOUTH SIDE, NEW ORLEANS, COLOMBO, JUAREZ AND BROOKLYN SUBURBIA, THE FARM, AND LITTLE SMALL TOWNS.
WE'RE IN FOSTER CARE, THE PSYCH WARD, JUVIE, AND ABOUT TO BE EVICTED.


WE ARE SURVIVORS WHO ARE MORE THAN WHAT WE SURVIVED.
WE ARE FIGURING OUT HOW TO HEAL
AND HOW TO MAKE IT SO THAT NO ONE
WILL HAVE TO SURVIVE SEXUAL VIOLENCE EVERY AGAIN.
WE BELIEVE IN THE TOTAL DESTRUCTION OF THE SYSTEM AS WE KNOW IT
TO MAKE SOMETHING MUCH MO BETTA
AND WE BELIEVE IN MAKING OUR OWN WAYS TO FIGHT AND RESIST
ON THE DAILY.

A FEMME SHARK IS ANY GIRL
WHO IS TOUGH, HUNGRY, FIGHTS FOR HERSELF AND HER FAM
AND IS WORKING ON BECOMCING THE KIND OF GIRL
WHO FINDS GOD IN HERSELF
AND LOVES HER FIERCELY

WE'RE YOUR BEST GIRLFRIEND AND YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE

LOVE AND RAGE
THE FEMME SHARKS


FEMME SHARKS ARE ON PATROL!
JOIN THE MOVEMENT! SHARK SHARK IT UP!

FOR MORE INFORMATION, EMAIL

THEFEMMESHARKS@GMAIL.COM

Written by Founding Femme Shark Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

The Femme Sharks are an idea that was dreamed up by SBBFFF (Slutty Brown Best Femme Friends Forever) Zuleikha Mahmood and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha in March of 2008, Oakland, CA.

Who are the Femme Sharks?

The Femme Sharks are a movement founded by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Zuleikha Mahmood to reclaim the power of femmes as fierce, tough, hungry girls who are the leaders and defenders of our communities. Pissed off at the stereotypes we keep running into inside and outside the queer community, that femme = weak, stupid, drama-laden, anorexic and looking like Barbie, in March 2008 Slutty Brown Best Femme Friends Forever Zuleikha Mahmood and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha founded the Femme Sharks, a movement that re-inscribes femme as voracious, tough, complicated, and living inside many kinds of bodies- the kind of girls who can fuck your ass and change the oil in the car at the same time. Our manifesto has circulated widely across North America, and our Dyke March contingent in support of the New Jersey 4 was a huge hit. Projects in the works include an Oakland sex party for queer and trans POC benefiting QTPOC causes like the New Jersey 4.

 
This work is shared under a Creative Commons license- feel free to share if you give credit where cred is due.

TODAY I am fresh like the freshest river water.  TODAY I am the realization of what being in love with the sound of my keys on the busted Toshiba keyboard sounds and feels like. What being in love with my life feels like.  TODAY I am the realization of the release of every drop of sweat from my hard work.

I AM BEING a perfect manuscript's crispness slid into an envelope.. I AM BEING a 92 station wagon sourced for free  that works perfectly, she's just a little loud, climbing Fruitvale canyons, sliding into Laurel parking spots next to sage biscuit breakfast spots, slid behind another twenty hoopties with Obama bumperstickers to sip a beer. I AM BEING easy, grown and lovely

I AM RELEASING my fear of opening the letter or answering the phone, stale days staring at a screen numbing myself with HBO series and online communities. I AM RELEASING such a series of old scars ripping lose and rubbed off into crumbs brushed off my healed knee. I AM RELEASING every one else's everything before my own.

I AM CREATING ground and strategies where I take care of my business and it gets easier and easier. I AM CREATING  a legacy that will be around after I'm gone and an everyday that's full of joy. I AM CREATING the conditions to give birth to my daughter in four years.
 
WHAT I LOVE ABOUT MY LIFE IS: almost everything, everything! I LOVE
my Hot Chocolate binder and Hello Kitty pencil case ready for Poetry for the People Student Teacher Poet-ing in a month. I LOVE nectarine sorbet and honey nutmeg icecream in a cone with a kiss of chocolate at the tip. I LOVE my sleeping schedule so for the first time in years my fibro body gets enough rest and wakes up ready! I LOVE weeks of hard work and then driving with Beena screaming along to "Ride the Fence" on the 880,  to swim in the ocean at Santa Cruz and drink dark and stormies and eat Hawaiian burgers. I LOVE  that what the hell, I'm going to Hawaii for free for a queer APIA partner abuse conference on labor day weekend?! I LOVE that The Revolution Starts at Home is DONE!!!! Four years hard work paying off, 135 pages, we wrote  a book, we change the world! I LOVE  that this year I will have enough money from pelvic modelling, teaching, grad assistting and personal assisting and I WONT be crazy working too hard staying in my PJs til a half hour before class. I LOVE that I will graduate in a year with two books and an MFA. I LOVE my everyday head nod of Oakland. I LOVE my life overflowing with Beena, Cherry, Maceo, friends from Toronto visiting, David unexpected down the block from the school I taught at, all my richness of friends. I LOVE one mango and tequilla gyrating on the patio at Oasis. I LOVE Elizabeth Alexander. I LOVE the entire damn Oakland and SF Library systems. I LOVE late nights, okay, more like 10 PM cuz we're old calls catching up with Felix on the phone. I LOVE that I'm going to be keynoting at the Femme Conference next to Dorothy Allison in less than a week. I LOVE learning not to panic. I LOVE thriving. I LOVE Generation Five and the promise of ending abuse in 125 years. I LOVE the questions they ask. I LOVE walking towards compassion to my parents and being sure I will birth newness.

I CELEBRATE AND NURTURE MY EXISTENCE as ripe nectarine, laughing girl, words and work and joy flowing effortless, rough, just like a river goes smooth and crazy over rock.

http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/QFest08/08QFIndex.html

Hi friends,

My one-woman show, Grown Woman Show, is having its big Bay Area debut in a month, as part of the National Queer Arts Festival. I'm writing to invite
you all to come, and I am also wondering if you can forward this email
around to your networks. I am a little nervous about nobody showing up,
even though I know this will probably not happen because it's in the
National Queer Arts Fest and all- but I'm relatively new to the Bay Area
and while i know a shit load of folks, I'm sure you know more.

I know the phrase 'community-based' is almost meaningless, but I am
someone who makes art for the benefit of her community and the people I
love and care about, and that's you. So I hope you can make it.

xoxo
Leah


Grown Woman Show
a one-woman show by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
June 5-6, 2008
975 Howard/ The Garage, 975 Howard Street, San Francisco, CA
As part of the 2008 National Queer Arts Festival and AIRSpace
Co-sponsored by the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center's United States
of Asian America Festival
8 PM
Ticket price $10-$20 (no one turned away)
For more information: http://www.myspace.com/leahlakshmi..tr>..table>

or http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/ Grown Woman Show: a one woman show in which queer Sri Lankan writer and performer Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha tells a lot of stories about queer of color love, fam and Total Drama Disaster, breaking up with the white girl you were going to have kids with, and what surviving incest and talking to your parents for the first time in ten years looks like in real life. Taking us way, way past where The Courage to Heal leaves off, Grown Woman Show traces a year in Piepzna-Samarasinha's life, as she explores the nitty-gritty of family reconciliation after The Big Incest Accusation - or not - crazy white moms, beautiful and angst-ridden transfag of color boyfriends and exactly what finally being grown looks like. In a show that's somewhere between Dorothy Allison's Two or Three Things I Know For Sure and a queer femme of color version of Danny Hoch, Leah makes her own roadmap to what 'healed' finally looks like. And it's funny. Grown Woman Show is for every survivor who's not freaking out any more, everyone who still is, and any of the above that wish their were more stories of what our lives really feel like. Looking at the families we make and come from, it's a fierce testimony to the power of one woman's own Truth And Reconciliation Process. Grown Woman Show is an opportunity for healing through shared story and a documentation of the complicated realities of queer survivor's lives, told with compassion and honesty. For more information or to arrange media interviews: brownstargirl@riseup.net www.brownstargirl.com www.myspace.com/leahlakshmi About the artist: Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a queer Sri Lankan writer, spoken word artist, arts educator and cultural worker. The author of Consensual Genocide, she has performed her work widely across North America, including performances at Swarthmore College, Yale University, Oberlin College, Sarah Lawrence College, University of Southern California, and at Femme 2006, Bar 13, Gendercrash, The Loft, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and the RADAR Reading Series. Her writing about queer and young women of color activism has been widely anthologized, appearing in Homelands: Women's Journeys Across Race, Place and Time, We Don't Need Another Wave, BitchFest, Colonize This!, With a Rough Tongue: Femmes Write Porn, Without a Net, Dangerous Families, Brazen Femme, Femme, and A Girl's Guide to Taking Over the World. For the past ten years she has worked as a counselor and organizer around sexualbassault and domestic violence, as a feminist crisis line worker, LGBT youth worker and member of INCITE Women of Color Against Violence. Recently relocated to Oakland, California, after running away from America for a decade, she is completing her MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College and finishing her second book, Dirty River, a memoir of coming of age as a young queer brown survivor in mid 90s anarchist, queerpunk and women of color movements.

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When I am not a whirlwind, I am flat on my ass in my bed. I am staring at free TV on the internet, reading books that are comforting not hard, popping 800 MG of advil, trying not to panic. I am taking hot baths, ice packs and the food I keep in the freezer. I am the flipside.

Since 1998, my life has been deeply affected by my fibromyalgia diagnosis. Fibro is a chronic pain and immune deficiency chronic illness that is not well understood by western medicine, but has more and more sufferers. People who get it tend to have either chemical/toxic exposures or a history of extreme trauma (anything from a car accident to war to being raped). or both. To be diagnosed with fibro, you have to have steady pain in 16 out of 32 'tender points' in the body that does not correspond to physical illness or trauma. I'm an incest survivor and I grew up in a cancer cluster. My ass, shoulders and hips hurt a lot.


Every fibro sufferer has a different constellation of symptoms in addition to chronic pain. Mine are struggles with vertigo and balance, hyperexertion (ie, I carry a jug of milk one block from the corner store, I hurt for a week) a weakened immune system that makes me vulnernable to illness, sleep disorders, extreme fatigue that rest does not cure. When I have an outbreak, my cognitive skills are also sometimes affected- I struggle to figure out what sequence to perform tasks in, my verbal skills go down and it takes much longer to do anything; it can also be difficult for me to talk or understand complex sentences when it gets really bad. This is the scariest part for me.

Some people who have fibro also have chronic fatigue or Lyme disease; some don't. As with all recent immune system disorders, western medicine (surprise, surprise) is not doing the greatest job of understanding or treating them. There is no one magic bullet cure. Different things help different people.


My fibro has gotten much, much better from where it was at ten years ago. I can go months without symptoms, but when they hit, they hit. Some fibro sufferers pretty much feel like shit all the time. Others of us have 'flares', spikes in symptoms- this is what I have. It's better than being sick all the time, but it's also kind of crazy making because I never know when I'll have to cancel everything. Triggers can include humidity and dampness, cold, stress and allergic reactions, but sometimes shit happens and I have no idea why.


Fibro affects every part of my life. I spend most of my money on organic food and herbs that keep me well and were what has made me improve from the point where I was having a hard time walking in 1999. I do yoga, rest, have an active relationship with my spirituality, sculpt my diet into one that will help me detoxify my body, work extremely part time hours and cancel work and meetings when I crash.

I'm writing you because you're in my life and it's 10 years since I was diagnosed. I am working towards living in wholeness with my chronic illness, not hiding when I'm sick and only showing the part of me that's able-bodied, speedy and charming to the world. I realized that not everyone in my life may know that I have fibro, or have good information about what that means, and I want to rectify that.


Unfortunately, although I've had friends and lovers in my life who've gotten it and been great, I've also dealt with a lot of people who I otherwise respect who would chronically "forget" that I'm sick, be newly surprised every time I showed up to work with my cane, or deny and minimize my fibro in really fucked up ways, like telling me that of course I could take a bus (actually, 2 busses and a streetcar) home with them when my legs collapsed under me at a bookstore one day. Take a cab- are you out of your mind? I also am really over people who act like diasbled people are downers, pathetic, or that I'm making it all up and if I just toughed it out everything would be fine.

So I am writing to say that those attitudes are HELLA NOT COOL, and to say that there are hella folks with chronic illness and disabilities in queer and trans of color communities and I think we could be doing a better job of taking care of each other.

Gloria Anzaldua, beloved mami of so many of us, died in her 50s of diabetes after a ten year struggle with it. I was reading through her online web altar, and I came across a friend's post, which talked about his struggled with lupus and Gloria's struggles with diabetes, how in the last decade of her life it prevented her from working or leaving her house. I read this a day after I'd had to cancel work and going to a friend's daughter's birthday party because I was hurting bad all over and deeply fatigued. I flashed to how I'd been stuck in the house, in my bed, surrounded by ice packs and painkillers and tincture bottles and tea, and I thought, fuck! Gloria Anzaldua spent ten years homebound, struggling to write? I don't know Gloria personally. From things I've read, it sounds like she had help and love from her friends, but I'm sure there were times where she felt just as isolated as I do. And she was Gloria Anzaldua.

How messed up is it that so many QTPOC icons were cheated of their lives, dying 40 years to early of cancer, diabetes and AIDS? How many of the communities who loved them knew how to take care of them when they were weak? How many of them knew how to ask?

There are so many of us who struggle with this shit, but our friends don't know because it's really scary and vulnerable. I know I've felt like, damn, when I'm not sick I wanna be a hot young thing in the club, not in my old sweatpants in my house! But as we mourn Audre, June, Marlon, Gloria, Barbara Cameron, Essex and other mastra queer and trans POC who died too young of chronic illness, we have to start realizing that taking care of ourselves and each other is our issue. Even if you don't have a chronic illness or disability, you know someone who either has one or is going to get one.

I understand that our resources are stretched thin, but we are the only ones who will take care of each other. And as we build for the next generation, I want us to live to be elders. I want us to have the 30, 40 more years that Audre and Marlon and Gloria should've had in their lifespans. I want us to create movements that kick ass and are also real, not shame-filled, about how disability changes how we can work.

Here is a list in progress of stuff that I think is good for people to know.

Please do not chronically forget that I have this. Even when I'm symptom free. it does not mean that it's gone forever. It really sucks when people are constantly 'forgetting' that you have an illness.

Please do not judge folks with disabiltiy/ chronic illness for driving instead of biking, making it to the corner store not the organic co-op that's 5 miles away. Our mobility needs are different.

Please don't tease me or mock me when I've told you I'm having a flare and I'm struggling to do something physical. Yes, this happens.

Please ask what I need, instead of assuming that you know.

Please don't act like you deserve a medal cuz you made me some soup.

Please don't assume that since you know how to help one disabled/ chronic friend, you know how to help everyone. Every disabled person's stuff is different.

Please do not think having a chronic illness makes me less sexy or exciting. Actually, one of my favorite pain control methods is jerking off for hours.

Please do not be a jerk if I tell you I have a flare and all of a sudden it's hard for me to lift shit, open a jar, or concentrate on an extremely long sentence. Please do not conflate me needing help with these things = femme= weak.

Please work on it if you feel, consciously or not, that anything other than a leg amputation doesn't "count" as disability. I've had friends and lovers who grew up poor or working class (like I did) who have given me shit for being sick - because if you grow up broke, you tough it out, you're stoic, you suck it up. You can't be all delicate running to the doctor for every little thing! You don't have insurance, or the kind you have sucks, and if you go to the clinic you wait for six hours and they just fuck with you or treat you like shit during the 10 minute visit. I totally get that, and I know that being stoic and dealing are a survival skill - ones I use every day - but they can co-exist with me being sick.

Please let me know if you are available to do homecare. I will trade you for this when I'm not sick. Honestly, this is the hardest thing for me to ask for, but often I really do need help doing laundry, taking the garbage out or getting food in the house. I know everyone in my extended QTPOC fam struggles with time, stress and money, and taking care of someone homebound might be the last thing one wants to add to one's plate. That;s why I hate to ask. But what other alternative is there? I am into thinking through how to make this work.

Please consider how you can come to me if I'm sick. I hate missing events and good times cuz I'm exhausted, and I miss my friends. It's also vulnerable for me to show people myself when I'm sick, but I get hella bored watching free movies on the internet.

Please, please, do not tell me that my herbs, diet, etc (especially when it is all carefully budgeted and acquired from the farmer's market and the bulk store) are "bougie."

Please do not change the subject, space out, or start humming really loudly when the subject is rasied. For real.

Okay, that's all for now. I hope this can get a conversation going and is helpful for folks who either have disability/ illness or are in community with folks who are.

I am loving standing on the 2 train, August 6 2007, 6:15 PM rush hour, my parent's 37th wedding anniversary, smiling the ghost of my old self, 19 years old getting off at Bergen St. I am lovely in sweat, a chocolate and lilac striped strapless top and the black denim miniskirt that is still perfect, on my way to see Lauryn Hill for free (even though she was 3 hours late and looked nuts and sang about Jesus when she did show up.) I am nothing to prove.

I am taking care of my chronically ill, beautiful body. I am releasing old lovers, old furniture and three thousand mason jars. I am making it to pay what you can yoga on time. I am loving being hit on by four different guys with four different beautiful smiles in the poetry section of Robin's Books in Philly. I am also loving the African American poetry section of Robin's, picking up The Black Notebooks , the Cave Canem anthology and Yusef Komunyakaa's collected work. I am loving cornmeal and honey scrub, buying two bottles of Hair Milk at the Carol's Daughter kiosk in the mall and a fruitless but fun search for luvNoir Song of Solomon Body Butter.

I'm into getting checked out for wearing a No One Is Illegal t shirt. I am loving going back to school. I am happy driving a rented minivan fast bumping Blue Scholars with 7 Freedom Schoolers sleeping in the back through crazy hail and winds and rain. I am sneaking off with a delirious Ching-In to the big whole foods for coffee and to watch sushi that rolls by on a conveyor belt. I am Chinatown Ice Cream Factory greatest hits and loving on trading Fight With Whitey (In a Movie Theater) victory stories with Bao and Juliana.

I am loving being called an elder at 32, and also aware that it's ridiculous. I am listening to June and Gloria whisper in my ear, STOP SMOKING GODDAMNIT, so I can live to be an elder, so I can not be another QPOC mama artist dead at 57 or 62. I am loving working from a place of confident grounded strength to co-create an APIA poetry/spoken word movement that is queer, trans and girl positive and that does not break my heart. That's why they call it a struggle, we're supposed to sweat. I am loving working with straight APIA men challenging them to learn from queer and trans dudes and to model ways of being an anti-sexist Asian poet star who does not have to be John Stoltenberg. Some of them already are. Some will get there.

I am the 7 train to Elmhurst with Ching-In, Selly and Gein to a Blue Scholars show held in what looks like what punk rockers used to build now built by Filipino hiphopers- a bunch of two by fours, spit and masking tape nailed together into a building covered in immigrant rights and anti GMA posters that contains an upstairs stage suspended by wires from the ceiling. Geo jokes that if the stage collapses at least we'll all always remember the show. I am bouncing up and down singing along to all the lines of No Rest for the Weary.

I'm chilling on Adrien's porch for hours and hours with nothing to do but watch Miles and Meridian with him and Timothy and Duiji, endless iced coffee and conversation. "So, what community accountability strategies have you guys seen about abuse that have actually worked?" I am loving the trans youth he hangs out with and his kids and wanting to get knocked up watching them. I am loving pina colada water ice, "all forms of oppression are essentially forms of dissasociation" and making the whole family put on mascara. I am watching BSG with Meridian at 1 AM. I am my first vacation in 2 years. I am deciding that my cat will live one more day if I take the greyhound home tomorrow. I am hearing a building collapse across the street. I am enjoying anarchist coffee, running through the sprinkler park with all my clothes on, bumping Bayani in Sham's car while H. yells for his favorites and smoking on the roof talking a mile a minute with T. about South Africa and Sri Lanka and trauma and binational gossip and quinoa.

I am letting go of my anger at my creaky hips and embracing my bed and sick times as sanctuary. I am feeling all three arches of my feet. I am a one-way ticket, two big bags and two carry-ons and a cat on Rescue Remedy. I am can't wait. I am letting go of Toronto as safety zone but never as home. I am ten new poems. I am "Damn, Leah, is a writer. " I am nobody's magic mommy although I make magic. I am saying no. I am letting folks work there own shit out. I am getting my nails done with my adviser. I am the next book and the one after that and the one after that.

It's like that, y'all.

things I won't miss: