Community Folklife Fellowship Cohort

Bio:
Adam Rosario is a music therapist (MT-BC), percussionist, and retired US Army infantryman based in Austin, Texas. He is a co-founder of Tambores del Pueblo, an Afro-Puerto Rican bomba ensemble that seeks to build community and promote wellness through music and dance. Adam has been a student of Puerto Rican folkloric music traditions since childhood and continues to seek knowledge and guidance from elders at every opportunity. As a culture bearer, he has been sharing these traditions with Central Texas communities through performance and education for nearly two decades.

Project Description:
For this project, Adam will be documenting plena puertorriqueña as practiced in diasporic Puerto Rican communities across Texas. He will identify and explore the characteristics of plena as defined by local practitioners, the role it plays regarding identity and social engagement, and how its interpretation may differ between communities.

Instagram handle: @adam.rosario

Bio:
Born for the people of Mexico on the foot of the saddle mountain, Alba was raised on Coahiltecan, Esto’k Gna, and Lipan Apache lands and resides on Karankawa, Akokisa, and Atakapa-Ishani lands.

Her creative practice explores the natural world and belonging through ancestral histories, storytelling and material art. Alba has participated in the Texas Folklife Apprenticeship Program with writer Virginia Grise. She’s also trained on working with the earth with artist Nancy Rios.

Alba has centered her 20+ year career on social justice, antiracism, and collective liberation. She’s worked on: displacement + gentrification, policing + brutality, transparency in public budgets + open governance, food + green space access, resilience + opportunity building, immigrant + refugee rights, and environmental and climate justice.

Her art and professional practice amplify how people nurture life and culture beyond social problems and how ancestral memory can guide us toward collective thriving and deeper connection to the land and each other.

Project Description:
My project will document plant-based cultural practices of diasporic and displaced communities. Rooted in the belief that humans, plants, and other living beings co-create place, this work will explore how culture bearers have sustained relationships with the land across borders through plantways (gardens, medicine, food-ways)—practices that affirm identity and continuity in the face of colonization and displacement.

Socials:
Instagram: @StudioEntrePalmas
Alba Donajhi Sereno
She | Her | Ella

Bio:
Amber Ortega (MFA, BFA) is a Queer Xicana-Tejana, choreographer, educator, writer, and collaborator, and is the Coordinator for the International Folk Culture Center (IFCC) at Our Lady of the Lake University. Ortega researches embodiment, technology, and the epistemology of dance, and guest lectures offering transdisciplinary approaches from dance perspectives. She explores embodied writing and methodologies of practice for creative writers and movers-who-write. Her research was recently supported by the Croft Residency as the 2024 & 2025 Artist in Residence. Her work, “Mycelium” is included in the anthology, Somos Xicanas, published by Riot of Roses, and OyeDrum, an intersectional feminist magazine. Her hybrid poem, “WATERHEATDREAMPLACE” and “Mycelium” have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Web. Ortega’s work has been presented at the Association for Jotería Arts, Activism, and Scholarship (AJAAS) in Los Angeles, Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldua (SSGA) El Mundo Zurdo Conference, and Interference Fest.

Project Description:
I will be telling the story of dance in San Antonio. This story will contain interviews with dance elders, cultural dance bearers, and dance researchers and archivists in San Antonio. As well I will track down historical dance artifacts that are not well known but hold many stories and memories. The story of dance in San Antonio is held by few hands and it is time for our community to create an archive in earnest. This project will aim to credit the labor of San Antonio dancing bodies, both present and past, and connect the future of dance with hopeful threads.

Social Media:
Instagram @spareworks
Facebook Amber Ortega

Website:
https://padlet.com/ortegaworx/staying-in-a-body-ktdab03d8nxnxpnr

Bio:
Beto De León is a Lipan Apache & Xicanx indigequeer herbalist, multidisciplinary artist, and community archivist based in San Antonio, TX. Beto has spent the past 17 years as a community organizer in San Antonio with a focus on environmental justice, traditional agriculture and protecting our natural water sources. Beto’s inspiration in traditional agriculture and ecology have helped create multiple community learning spaces and skill shares highlighting traditional food, medicine, art and sustainability in South Texas. Their work has been expressed through site specific gatherings, community organizing spaces, zines,art installations and through their medicine making. Their plant, food and herbal learning has spanned over 25 years of study including multiple curated spaces locally and as a guest speaker in other communities. Their work is rooted in a desire to preserve ecological wisdom in south Texas through community building, connection and creativity.

Project Description:
::Flor y Palma:: This archival project will document the stories of elders from South Texas and México who have maintained traditional practices of flores de papel and tejido de palma. These crafts have shaped community gatherings, cultural events and spiritual spaces while also preserving ecological wisdom in their works for generations.

Bio:
Briana Blueitt is a multimedia journalist and interdisciplinary artist developing work at the intersection of memory, ecology and social justice.

Her work is guided by faith, rooted in South and Deep East Texas, and foregrounds movements for land and food sovereignty, solidarity economies and intergenerational exchange of knowledge.

Currently, she is a resident DJ at Ice House Radio and the Creative and Editorial Advisor for PECAN Project, a reparative journalism and storytelling initiative that centers Black rural life and Afro-Texan histories.

Her work has appeared in Scalawag Magazine, USA Today, Counterstream Media, Texas Observer, Texas Monthly and group exhibitions in Austin and San Antonio.

Prior to working in independent media and the arts, she developed creative communications strategies for progressive policies, candidates and campaigns.

Project Description:
Briana is producing a documentary podcast episode about the sacred art of kinkeeping in East Texas. In the words of Dr. Andrea Roberts, founder of the Texas Freedom Colonies Project, “Kinkeepers remember, define, and enumerate people and places that for years have ceased to count among preservationists and planners.”

Social Media:
Instagram
LinkedIn

Website:
brianablueitt.com

Bio:
Claudia Saenz (she/her), known as Tear Drop, is a first-generation Tejana community builder and music devotee. In 2014, she launched Chulita Vinyl Club (CVC), a nationwide collective of women, gender-non-conforming, non-binary, and self-identifying people of color who use vinyl as a form of resistance against cultural erasure under the belief that EL DISCO ES CULTURA.

Claudia also hosts Mi Tesoro Hour, a radio project that originated on Marfa Public Radio and has expanded into an online newsletter and digital archive. By spinning vinyl on the air and online, she provides a platform for the untold stories of Latino, Tejano, and Chicano artists. Additionally, she manages the CVC SoundCloud, a living archive of nearly 200 all-vinyl mixes. A devoted sister, daughter, partner, and tía, Claudia is committed to ensuring her community’s soulful history is preserved by those who created it.

Project Description:
Mil Tesoros documents the living traditions of Tejano and Chicano vinyl culture and DJing in South Texas. Through oral history interviews and a documentary podcast, this project preserves the untold stories of music pioneers and community hubs, ensuring these soulful legacies are archived by the community.

Social media handles, Website:
https://www.chulitavinylclub.com/
https://www.instagram.com/hardouthereforamija/
https://www.mixcloud.com/MarfaPublicRadio/mi-tesoro-hour-with-tear-drop-07-10-24/
https://soundcloud.com/chulitavinylclub/chulita-tear-drop-if-youre-ever-in-texas

Bio:
My work encompasses multiple roles, all centered on engineering cultural experiences through collectives that document tradition and employ design as a form of ritual practice. I understand culture as infrastructure: something built through relationships, sustained by memory, and activated through public participation. I am a contributor to various creative productions across: North, Central, and South America, with a focus on community-based publishing, music archiving, foodways, and public programs that surface local knowledge and overlooked histories.
Individuals and organizations often reach out my way to bridge artists, organizers, and institutions, translating grassroots cultural practice into durable, values-driven ecosystems. I prioritize collaboration, access, and continuity, ensuring that cultural knowledge remains living, shared, and responsive to the communities from which it emerges.
Through archival work, program design, and collective leadership, I support traditions not only as sites of preservation, but as active, evolving systems shaped by care, reciprocity, and long-term community accountability.

Project Description:
De La Garza Music Project working name
…documents and interprets a family-run jukebox and record distribution network in South Texas, spanning a decade (late-70’s through late-80’s) and examines how independent music circulation shaped regional listening practices, social life, and cultural memory. It reframes jukeboxes as community infrastructure that connects artists, audiences, and everyday spaces.

Bio:
Koyana Flotte is a scholar, writer, and research consultant based in Central and West Texas. She is from the border region of Ojinaga, Chihuahua, and Presidio, Texas. She is a direct descendant of the Jumano, Julime, Concho, Chiso, and Lipan Apache communities in the Barrio de los Lipanes, and an enrolled member of the Lipan Apache Tribe. She serves as Senior NAGPRA Coordinator and Visiting Professor in Anthropology/Sociology at the University of Texas at El Paso. Flotte’s work focuses on repatriation, Indigenous rights, environmental stewardship, and community-based research along the U.S.–Mexico border.

Project Description:
This project is a community-centered ethnographic initiative dedicated to gathering, preserving, and returning stories that matter to Indigenous communities of Far West Texas and related regions. Its purpose is to document lived histories, cultural knowledge, and place-based experiences in ways that directly support community priorities, strengthen intergenerational knowledge transmission, and sustain cultural continuity for a proposed community-serving space in Far West Texas.

Grounded in reciprocity, informed consent, and collaborative authorship, the project centers community authority over representation. Through oral history interviews, place-based
conversations, and relationship-driven research, participants will identify the stories most important for education, cultural stewardship, and community use. Rather than extractive
documentation, the project prioritizes return by sharing materials back with communities in accessible formats such as public programs, community gatherings, and educational resources. This approach aligns ethical ethnographic practice with public folklore values, ensuring long-term benefit, cultural care, and accountability to the communities whose knowledge sustains the work.

BIO:
Laura Yohualtlahuiz Rios-Ramirez (she/they) is a detribalized Queer Mexican-born Xicanx community scholar, researcher, narrative & cultural strategist of Tepehuan, Guachichil Chichimeca, and mixed lineage trained in educational pedagogy, circle keeping, performance art, and cultural organizing. They are an alumni of the Southwest Folklife Alliance, Intercultural Leadership Institute and Highlander Research & Education Center as well as a member of Xinachtli Comadres Network, Women of Color in the Arts, Alternate Roots, Southern Movement Assembly and Wind & Warrior Institute focusing on participatory action research, popular education, and traditional healing arts. They co-lead Kalpulli Ayolopaktzin, an Anahuaka ceremonial group dedicated to re-tribalizing families through Anahuaka teachings, Mexica-Chichimeca danza, traditional medicine, & kinship building. Laura is a veteran Bgirl, Wife, Mami, Tia, and Madrina passionate about healing intergenerational & colonial trauma through Matriarchy, Cultura Cura circle keeping and folklife preservation. Their life work holds the tension of change, grounding in collective liberation as an Afro-Indigenous futurist.

SOCIAL MEDIA:
IG: @ahuiani_mami @ayolopaktzin
FB: https://www.facebook.com/illboogz

Bio:
Oddett Garza is originally from Kingsville, TX and is now based in Austin. She is an educator and filmmaker focused on intergenerational storytelling, community memory, and cultural preservation, with a focus on Tejana artists, educators, and activists whose contributions have been largely absent from mainstream historical narratives. Her latest documentary, Lessons Learned in Cotulla, has been selected to screen at 7 festivals throughout the United States and won best short documentary at CineFestival in San Antonio in 2025. Her films focus on women who came of age during the Chicano and Civil Rights Movement by blending oral history, archival research, and creative storytelling to share films that serve as historical records and catalysts for community dialogue. She is honored to continue this work as a Texas Folklife Community Folklife Fellow.

Project Description:
Her project documents and preserves the Tejana experiences of elders in Kingsville, Texas through oral histories and audio storytelling. By centering women’s voices, this work honors lived memory, cultural traditions, and community resilience while creating an accessible archive for future generations.

I am excited to have been selected as a mentee with the New Philanthropists 2019-2020 cohort. With over 15 years of community involvement, I am excited to learn how to be a more effective member of our community.

After graduating college, I began my career teaching in southern California. Having worked in non-profit for the last 8 years, I take pride in the program my team and I have created. Community engagement and outreach is essential to the work we do. More importantly, we must be able to effectively communicate our successes in order to maintain our funding. To do this, I am constantly evaluating and improving upon the ways we reach the community to ensure we are providing measurable positive outcomes. I have done this by keeping abreast of the latest research and strategies as well as implementing surveys and systems that allow staff to see what actions produce the best results. This has resulted in our program consistently meeting our annual goals of serving more than 120 families.

In addition to community outreach, our program regularly seeks out partnerships with other organizations to better serve our students. My team meets weekly to brainstorm new relationships that will allow our program to become more dynamic. We have collaborated with dozens of organizations including UT, ACC, Skillpoint Alliance to name a few. Because of these partnerships, our students are able to find better employment, enrichment, and opportunities to become more involved within the community.

In addition to my work at ASPIRE, I founded a non-partisan grassroots organization aimed at educating and engaging voters on local issues. Starting from a simple idea less than a year ago, I have grown a network of over 200 community members who meet monthly to further our mission. Our meetings have generated interest from lobbyists, organizers, and prospective candidates.

I would be honored to bring my experience of organizing and coordinating programs to the City of Austin. With that, I will also bring my passion for community. I will never tire of constantly trying to improve our program in order to better serve the community. In addition, I will strive to make the program a positive, inclusive environment where people’s strengths are celebrated, making for a productive work culture.

Website and Socials:
oddettgarza.com
https://www.instagram.com/americanlegacyproductions/

Bio:
Samantha (Goldberg Blackthorn) Saladino is a Texas based musician, storyteller, multimedia performance curator and ethnographic artist documenting Holocaust testimony through oral history, travel, and performance. She enjoys incorporating live music and puppets into her projects. Her current project focuses on the life of a close friend who escaped a Nazi death camp, survived in the forest, and later fought in armed resistance. Through recorded interviews, site visits in Eastern Europe, and musical interpretation, she preserves and shares this history with new audiences.

She has traveled throughout Eastern Europe, Great Britain, and Latin America with Holocaust survivors, bringing and collecting Yiddish music and story in regions where these events took place and into contemporary cultural spaces. Her work centers on testimony as lived experience and on the responsibility of carrying forward survivor narratives with accuracy and care.

Samantha performs as a multi-instrumentalist with Mazel Tov Kocktail Hour (klezmer), Bereket (Persian and Arabic) and Blackthorn’s Rambling Mystics (Celtic music). As a self described wandering “Jewelsh” musician, she works across borders and traditions, using music as a vehicle for cultural memory, resistance history, and intergenerational exchange.

Bio:
Sonny K. Mehta is a Houston-based Qawwali musician, educator, and community documentarian whose work centers on South Asian devotional music and interfaith collaboration. Active for over two decades, he has performed and taught Qawwali across the country, working closely with Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, and Christian artists to explore how sacred music travels, adapts, and builds belonging in diaspora communities. Sonny’s practice bridges performance and oral history, combining interviews, and digital storytelling to preserve living traditions rooted in community participation. His documentation focuses on gatherings where music functions as devotion, memory, and social connection. Through the Folk Faiths of Texas project, Sonny seeks to record and share how South Asian Texans sustain plural devotional music practices, creating archival resources that reflect Texas’s everyday interfaith coexistence.

Project Description:
This project documents how South Asian Texans sustain interfaith devotional music traditions through Qawwali, Bhajan, and Shabad Kirtan in Greater Houston. Using oral history interviews and field recordings, the project highlights how music fosters belonging, continuity, and coexistence within migrant communities.

Social Media:
www.instagram.com/riyaazqawwali/
https://www.youtube.com/riyaazqawwali

Mrs. Blanca Jenkins is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Languages and Literature at East Texas Baptist University. She is a naturalized citizen originally from Oaxaca, Mexico. Mrs. Jenkins values her faith and her culture. She grew up listening to her mother’s Triqui stories and witnessing her mother’s life as a bilingual and bicultural woman before she even dreamed of moving permanently to Texas and becoming bilingual and bicultural herself.

Mrs. Jenkins obtained a B.A. from East Texas Baptist University and a M.A. from the University of California at Santa Barbara. She has taught for 23 years; her teaching experience includes public and private high schools, and university settings. Mrs. Jenkins research interest include Hispanic Studies, Latino Folklore, and U.S. Latino Literature and Culture. She has published some of her work at Border Lines; Journal of the Latino Research Center at the University of Nevada-Reno, The Beacon; the Literary Journal for East Texas Baptist University, and The Journal- Ohio State University.

Mrs. Jenkins has a passion for connecting with students and teaching Spanish language and culture. Her love for teaching and travel has led her to lead several study-abroad courses to Latin America. She has also traveled to multiple Spanish speaking countries as an interpreter for different organizations. Traveling and interacting with people of different backgrounds have allowed her to see that human beings have more in common that they realize and that their stories have the ability to encourage understanding to create a better world for all.

My name is Elizabeth Barger. I am currently a Dual Language Kindergarten Teacher in Tuloso-Midway ISD in Corpus Christi, Texas. I am also the Treasurer for the Coastal Bend Association for Bilingual Education, a newly-created organization for the Coastal Bend.

I live in Corpus Christi with my husband, son, and our very spoiled chihuahua terrier, Lluvia. I have been teaching for over 20 years and am a very dramatic storyteller to little people. 

My journey in life has a path with many winding roads with many adventures, from samba to capoeira to parkour to teacher to technology, just to name a few. I love technology and am currently a Nearpod PioNear, one of 300 in the world. I enjoy presenting at conferences, especially about bilingual education and technology.

When I am not teaching, I enjoy reading, going to the beach, learning new things, or going on new adventures.

 l always have a story to tell, from my teaching, to my dancing, or to my many adventures in life. My family has a rich heritage with cooking and ranching that has not been told, often with a lot of jokes, ‘dichos’ and double meanings. I want to document my family’s stories, so that they may continue to be passed on.  My wish is to document our stories and to write a book.

“It has been said that next to hunger and thirst, our most basic human need is for storytelling.” -Khalil Gibran

Famo Musa was born in Somalia and raised in Kenya. She came to the United States in March 2004 as a refugee. She has been living in San Diego for the past 20 years, but lives in Houston Texas with her kids and she is hoping to get to know more about the refugee community in Houston. She is a writer and a photographer. She has a bachelor’s in literature and creative writing from UCSD. Musa has been involved in her community since 2010, her goal is to be a role model for the youth in her community. She worked as a Youth Organizer with the Global Action Research Center, (the Global ARC). Musa is also the co-founder of City Heights Youth for Change (CHYFC), a youth-led organization, advocating for youth in City Heights, part of the Global ARC. She has been a community leader who has been active in her community for the past 10 years, she advocates for youth and helps parents who are not familiar with the educational system and are experiencing language barriers.

Musa does documentary and portrait photography with an emphasis of preserving memories within her community. She uses both her photography and her storytelling skills to give voice to her community. Musa has always enjoyed writing about her life and her family. From the time she first arrived in America and did not write or speak English, she wanted to tell her story, but the language barrier made it difficult for her. After four years of high school and having the basics down, she started keeping journals writing about everything around her. In combination with her photography and writing, they became a tool to preserve her communities’ stories.

My name is Imgard Khosravi, and I’m a communication strategist and a storytelling enthusiast who was born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya. I currently reside in San Antonio, Texas, and I’m passionate about using storytelling to connect people and build communities. Over the years, I have worked on various communication and documentary projects, covering diverse community issues ranging from human rights, and environmental justice to climate change. I studied Journalism and Media studies at the University of Nairobi, Kenya and attained an MA in Media Peace and Conflict Studies at the U.N University for Peace in Costa Rica.

I have worked in different countries and backgrounds, and documented indigenous communities as they strived to access safe drinking water. Additionally, I utilized photography and journalism to highlight the challenges children refugees faced and focused my efforts on working with unaccompanied refugees from Congo, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea. Through my experiences, I have been able to transcend different backgrounds and cultures and tell meaningful stories within our communities.

In the past, I collaborated with Current Movements, an organization whose mission is to connect activists, organizations, and movements around the world using film, art, and technology. I had the opportunity to partner with an amazing group of friends and produced “Insurgent Imaginations,” a podcast that explores creative arts through a revolutionary lens. I currently work as a Director of Public Relations for Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez in San Antonio.

Whether through filming, photography, or podcasting, storytelling plays a vital role in bringing people together and preserving culture.

La’arni Ayuma descends from a family of traditional Filipina/o healers. She integrates the ancient healing arts with other somatic/energy healing techniques to promote well-being in her communities. As a queer holistic practitioner, she facilitates spaces that encourage transformational shifts, conscious of culture and traditional practices and is rooted in spiritual integrity, empowering community members in their self-care, healing and transformation. 

She came to this work from her lineage and from a belief and knowing that we have the ability to heal ourselves by creating the change we need to see. To manifest this, we must turn to our spirit, our ancestral knowing and memory to understand the parts of us that have been wounded and suppressed.

Ayuma’s work amplifies cultural traditions such as how sitting with elders to listen to their stories and learning from observing them doing traditional rituals honors the land and ancestors. The role and remembering of language connects one to land and/or their communities. It also focuses on tending to communities and communal well being that tends to allow for the individual to tune in on how to care for and express themselves.

She collaborates with other practitioners to hold sacred space for sharing stories and knowledge of our ancestors. Storytelling is the medicine of remembering and allows our communities to connect deeper with ancestral wisdom. 

La’arni Ayuma is also a proud mother and student to a 25 year old musician, a 12 year old artist and a 7 year old warrior healer. 

Laura Villareal is a poet and book critic. Her debut poetry collection, Girl’s Guide to Leaving, (University of Wisconsin Press 2022) was awarded Texas Institute of Letter’s John A. Robert Johnson Award for a First Book of Poetry and the Writers’ League of Texas Book Award for Poetry. ​She earned an MFA at Rutgers University—Newark and has been the recipient of fellowships and scholarships from the Stadler Center for Poetry and Literary Arts, National Book Critics Circle’s Emerging Critics Program, VONA, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Dobie Paisano Fellowship Program at University of Texas-Austin. 

She is currently an associate with Letras Latinas, the literary initiative at the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies, where she co-edits and writes for Letras Latinas Blog 2, in addition to working on other related projects.

Born and raised in Laredo, Texas, María-Luisa attended the University of Texas at Austin and University of California College of the Law, San Francisco. After a short practice, she followed her spouse to postings in the Netherlands, Singapore, and India. In Singapore, she taught legal research and writing to first year law students at the National University of Singapore. María-Luisa now resides in Houston, Texas. 

María-Luisa is an independent scholar focused on the folklore of Tejano culture, a self-described Tejanista. She is currently working on a book. Her previous works have appeared or are forthcoming in Chamisa: A Journal of Visual, Literary and Performance Arts of the Southwest, The Nasiona, and in an anthology, ¡Somos Tejanas! She has presented before the Society of Crypto-Judaic Studies. Her hobbies include both dancing and singing flamenco. 

Racquel Gilford is an artist and engineer with a passion for agriculture, education, technology and storytelling and currently resides in San Antonio, Texas. Racquel has worked on several projects throughout the city to advocate and promote a healthy food system, urban farming and herbalism. She is also a clinical herbalist and founder of Mawe Apothecary, offering tea, herbs, botanical products and workshops to the community.  She is also a board member of Sustainable G’s Inc a 501c3 focused on rebuilding connections to land through conservation, stewardship and cultural food stories.

As an artist and visual scholar, Racquel pushes to archive and share the rich untold history of underrepresented groups and their future possibilities. Her latest work is focused on women in agriculture across the African diaspora through metal, fiber, spoken word and other mixed-media. She hopes to inspire groups and communities to learn about these women and share their own unique stories. Her works have been featured and used in workshops at the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA), the San Antonio’s Official Tricentennial Celebration events, the Institute of Texan Cultures, The nationally published Quilt Folk Magazine & recently an award winning educational film “The Quilt” by Musical Bridges Around the World.

When not working or land based activities Racquel enjoys reading, poetry facilitating healing circles with somatic movement and sound therapy sessions in the community.

Laura M. Casmore was born in Port Arthur, Texas. She is a quilt artist who has been quilting for over 20 years. She holds a B.A in Telecommunication from Texas Tech University and a M.L.S. in Library Science from Texas Woman’s University. She is a practicing Christian and a 39-year member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Quilting for over 20 years she has worked her way into being listed as one of the premier quilters in the USA. As a quilt artist she has exhibited in various quilt shows local and across the country. She has held solo exhibits of her works in Port Arthur, Texas and Lake Charles, Louisiana. She has exhibited in Charleston, SC, Lawrence KS, and Tuskegee, AL. Utilizing primarily African fabric designs, along with her love for Black and White fabrics, her works display her love of faith, culture and love.

Family heritage plays a major role in the artistry of her works. The talent she brings comes from generations of women who expressed themselves with needle and thread. Laura provides custom quilt service and is always working on multiple quilts for commission, exhibit, or sale. Laura’s techniques have evolved from studying the quilt works of artist she admires and experimenting with looks to present a custom work. In her spare time, she can be found frequenting resale shops, reading, card playing or sharing her knowledge of quilting with anyone who will listen. She resides in Houston, Texas and is the proud mother of one daughter, Lauren and three grandchildren, Londynn, Stephen and Laureal.

Yvette Blair-Lavallais

Yvette R. Blair is a food justice strategist, ethnographer, public theologian and ordained elder in The Methodist Church. Her work centers Black, Latinx and Indigenous cultures in the foodways systems, particularly how “hand patted foods” made with cornmeal (hot water cornbread, fry bread, salmon croquettes) is a form of communal storytelling and “passing down” family history through shared meals.

An international speaker on food justice issues, she has been a featured panelist for Bread For The World’s Global Advocacy Summit, Conversation with the White House.

Yvette has presented her work on the systemic injustices of food insecurity at international conferences including the Political Theology Network conference at Union Theological Seminary in New York, Rural Women’s Studies Kitchen Table Talk to Global Forum at the University of Guelph in Canada.

She is a writer, author and a Public Voices Fellow of The OpEd Project. Yvette earned her Master of Theological Studies and graduated magna cum laude from Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University and will receive her Doctor of Ministry in Food Justice & Faith from Memphis Theological Seminary in May 2022.

Gianna Elvia Rendon is a Chicana/ Tejana cultural worker who grew up in the Westside of San Antonio. She is the founder of Echale Books which sought to provide affordable books and promote bilingual literacy in her community for four years.

She self-published a zine, “Recetas de mi Abuelo Raul,” which were excerpts of her grandfather’s recipes that he left the family after his passing. Artistically, she is interested in preserving and advocating for the preservation of Latin@/x and Indigenous recipes as a way of story telling and cultural preservation.

Monica Teresa Ortiz

Mónica teresa ortiz is a poet born and raised in Texas. Currently, ortiz is a journalist in residence with the Freedomways Reporting Project and an artist in residence with UT Austin’s Planet Texas 2050 initiative. ortiz has work forthcoming in Hayden Ferry’s Review and Scalawag, and resides in the Texas Panhandle. Follow them on Twitter @elgallosalvaje or on substack at elgallosalvaje.substack.com.

g’beda Tonya Lyles

g’beda Tonya Lyles is a healing artist of ancestral practices and a multi-instrumentalist of traditional folk, African instruments and blues guitar. g’beda is the curator and creator of Soul Note Concerts Series, Freedom in Sound, and Holistic Soul Healing Arts, offering performances, workshops and sessions in the art of mindfulness, performance, writing, meditative sound and movement.

g’beda is a transformational health practitioner who holds a doctorate in Chinese Medicine and acupuncture and uses principles of Eastern medicine, sound therapy, indigenous herbalism, food therapy, qigong, trauma-informed yoga  and meditative movement as a synergistic system.

With over 20 years of performance art, workshop facilitation and public presentation,  g’beda guides her audiences through community-based collectively transformative events.  gbedaarts@gmail.com

Antoinette Lakey

Antoinette A. Lakey is a community leader, researcher, and dramatist in San Antonio, Texas, who currently serves as Artistic Director for Teatro Anansi. Toni is a founding board member of Teatro Anansi, an organization with a mission to connect, celebrate, and commemorate African American theatre, performing arts as well as History within the greater San Antonio community. She is an award winning local Playwright having won awards for Divas of Eastwood and Men of Eastwood respectively in 2016 & 2017. She is involved with Dreamweek, SAAACAM (San Antonio Community Archive & Museum) and Juneteenth and as a local Spoken Word Artist, storyteller & Poet, she is presently spending a majority of her time lately telling stories through the San Antonio community.

Antoinette loves to tell stories dressed as a character from each story she reads. It allows the children and adults to have a visual and engage with her as the storyteller. Preserving the strong presence of the African American influence in San Antonio is integral to maintaining the roots of our city for our past, present and future. So she leads SAAACAM boat tours and shares our stories about our lives and influence in the city. “It’s important that as a multicultural city that our children have an understanding & a proper outlet for living in a positive manner, arts education and storytelling is the key.”

Kelsey Lee

Kelsey Lee earned her PhD in Social Anthropology from Durham University in 2021, subsequent to receiving her MSc in Social Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh in 2013. Her doctoral thesis explored Indigenous Sámi storytelling through digital media as part of a broader decolonial endeavor in the Arctic European North (more specifically, in Finland, Sweden, Norway, and the Kola Peninsula of Russia). Kelsey also has a keen and long-standing interest in ethnomusicology and global folk arts and has taken the opportunity to delve into these topics further as part of the Texas Folklife Community Folklife Fellowship Program.

Her project explores Ukrainian folk music in diaspora in North Texas, with a particular focus on the Vaselka Singers of Dallas. She hopes to eventually pursue a postdoctoral project exploring truth and reconciliation through folklife and folk music in relationship to settler Ukrainian and Indigenous associations in North America. Her ancestry is Swedish, Ukrainian, Russian, Lithuanian, and Ashkenazi. She plays the harp and also enjoys tapestry weaving.

Ayme Peña

Ayme Peña was born in Tamaulipas, Mexico in the late 80s. Her parents permanently relocated to the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) when she was four years old and she was blessed to call it home.  She received her Bachelor’s Degree in International Business from The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, followed by a Masters in Interdisciplinary Studies.  Ayme is a proud mother of two boys. Her goal is to continue with graduate studies and pursue a PhD. She is passionate about education and is eager to immerse herself once again with the RGV community, not only does she envision turning conversations into documents but also documenting via podcast production and community workshops.

Geroninma Garza

Upon retiring, Bilingual/ESL Teacher, Gerónima Garza set out to write for children. Fractured recollections of attending a Pastorela set her on a course of research. “My brother and I  fought all day,” she recalled. Exasperated, mother issued a warning: Si no se apaciguan, se les va aparecer EL DIABLO.”  In other words, “If you don’t stop fighting ; the DEVIL is going to appear.”  That night, the family attended a Pastorela, a play depicting the shepherd’s journey in search of the newborn Jesus. “While waiting for the play to begin, a most hideous demon jumped in front of us,” recalled Garza.”We were so scared we hugged each other, shaking in fright”. Undeterred mom simply asked, “What did I tell you?”

Garza’s fellowship goal is to further research the Pastorela tradition in Cotulla, Texas. Folklorist John Lomax with his son Allen recorded the Pastorela in 1934 and archived the music at the Library of Congress. Retirement has kept Garza busier than ever; her first picture book, Glove for a Lady, Illustrated by Noe G. Garza was launched in November of 2022 in commemoration of the fifty-fifth anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s visit to Welhausen School on November 7, 1966.

Garza served as Project Coordinator of the LBJ – The Teacher Statue Unveiling which featured Luci Johnson as keynote speaker, LBJ student families, US Navy Honor Guard, Artist Armando Hinojosa, and music by State Champions, Mariachi Cotulleño and the Texas State University Band. Garza is the recipient of the “New Voices” Nonfiction Workshop Scholarship hosted by the Smithsonian Institute, and a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Garza is a graduate of Cotulla High School, holds a B.S. in Education, & M.E. in Multicultural Studies from Pan Am University at Edinburg.

Julie Gossell

Julie grew up in Minneapolis, MN and is a graduate of Luther College, in Decorah Iowa. Julie moved to Texas in 1986, and held elementary teaching positions in San Antonio and Boerne. While teaching in Boerne, Julie developed the text and curriculum for teaching the town’s history. Upon retirement, Julie became the Director of the Kuhlmann King Museum in Boerne, developing programs of historical interest as well as educational outreach in the community. Julie is a member of the Kendall County Historical Commission. An avid dancer, Julie seeks out dance opportunities in the Hill Country and beyond.