#2: Shaping The Culture Wars with Jessa Calderon and Esther Meroño Baro
[This event was broadcast on Tuesday, April 26, 2022]
Colonial cultures and empire-building have a long tradition of using cultural warfare to establish domination and extraction of labor, resources, etc. while our current culture of domination continues to impact us today.
Building caring worlds will mean a necessity to recognize this harm, repair, and (re)build liberatory and loving cultures. Hear from Jessa Calderon and Esther Meroño Baro on how they navigate “the culture wars” to get us closer to caring cultures and futures.
Jessa Calderon, Artist
Singer, Song Writer, Emcee (rapper), Poet, and Published Author Jessa Calderon is of the Chumash and Tongva Nations of Southern California. Jessa also identifies with her Yoeme and Mexican roots. Jessa is a natural born singer who truly found her voice in hip-hop. As an emcee, poet and published author, Jessa is able to share her culture and truth in a way that keeps the crowds intrigued. Not only does Jessa bring pictures to life through the minds’ eye with her writing, she also brings her listeners enlightenment and healing. Since 2019 Jessa has joined the Dream Warriors collective with Tanaya Winder, Frank Waln, Lyla June, Tall Paul, Mic Jordan and Gunner Jules. Together they share, music, culture, stories, poems, seminars, workshops, webinars which equates to healing as a community. Aside from writing and music, Jessa is also very passionate in Massage Therapy, Energy work, Past Life Regressions, Hypnotherapy and Intuitive practices.
Esther Meroño Baro, Spirit Tender
Esther Meroño Baro (she/they) is a mom, friend, and community spirit tender. She enjoys playing pretend with her kid, dreaming out loud with her friends, reimagining and co-designing how her people love and care for each other, sharing everything she learns, and attempting to make sense of things through writing, filmmaking, and other forms of multimedia creation.