Happy Filipino-American History Month! We are incredibly honored to welcome Gayle Romasanta as this week’s writer, art-tivist, mother, and executive director of the Filipino-American Development Foundation. Gayle unwraps her process behind her latest work Larry: The Musical about Larry Itliong with us and her decades long experience working in community.

A true powerhouse of the Filipino American community, she brings us into the fold with her wisdom as a scholar and activist in the crucial movement of raising a generation of creators, artists, and feelers who come from a long lineage of working class fighters and the Manong generation as a form of resistance.

As we navigate the trauma of being deemed cheap labor and the racial violence we experience in our daily lives, Gayle urges us to continue fighting for the soul and core of who we are as a people in the stories we tell ourselves, our children, and our collective.

She also offers a reframe of the realities of full time parenthood, artist-hood, and community organizing and the illusion of “balance” when your craft, family, and community demand nothing but the best of you and your gifts.

Her advice? Create by any means necessary! Just do it!

WHAT IS BALAY KREATIVE? BALAY KREATIVE is a pop-up Filipino-American arts hub in SOMA Pilipinas, San Francisco, California. EXPLORE BALAY KREATIVE Website: www.balaykreative.com

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