So, we(and by we I mean me, I don’t even have an intern yet, any takers?) had a blast interviewing Dylan Amaro-Mcintyre, check out this lovely video and don’t miss the show this Saturday at Magnet 7:30 FREE!
and to help us keep up out video production work, please make sure to donate to our campaign!
When I met Avotjca I was at one of the Lunadas, the Lunada Literary Lounge hosted by Sandra García Rivera at Galería de la Raza and she blew me away. Her really cool looking and sounding name is pronounced Avacha, and she is originally from New York, but has lived in California a long time.
She performed one piece and it was magical, I could tell she was a pro right away and instantly I knew I had to meet her and ask her to be a part of the festival. Right away we got a long and began talking about her literary and music performance series La Palabra Musical, now at Cafe Leila in Berkeley, 1724 San Pablo Avenue, her radio shows and all the great work she’s done in the community and I knew she was going to be a great addition to the festival.
This Saturday, Galería de la Raza presents ¿Donde esta mi Gente? at Magnet in the Castro.7:30pm FREE, cheeeeeeeeeeck it out! And please share Avotcja’s Video!
Hey everyone, we’re still walking on Latino sunshine from how well the event went last Saturday, thank you for helping us make it happen. Now we gotta make this Saturday just as big of a success! Go to our Facebook invite, we had to make a new one, and click join, join on in on the fun.
CLICK HERE TO RSVP TO THE FACEBOOK INVITE,
And make sure to share with all your friends. And we mean all of them. The festival is focused on Latino writers but we want our shows to inspire unity, last Saturday we were so incredibly happy to see a very diverse crowd, black folks, white folks, asian folks, latinos, queers, of all shapes and sizes were in the audience enjoying the poetry. We were so thankful.
So don’t forget folks Saturday April 12th! At Magnet, starts at 7:30pm FREE!
Now check out this awesome video, an interview with one of the readers of the show on Saturday Jaime Cortez!
And check out Denise Benavides! She performed last Saturday but we weren’t able to get her video up because our computer is old and cranky and kept crashing. But check out the video!!
¡PRESENTE!
The show tonight was packed! Packed! I’ve never seen Books Inc full of so many people! The performances were fantastic! I am so grateful! I am so thankful to each writer, the Bookstore staff, especially their event coordinator who worked so hard to make us feel welcome, and honestly gave me probably one of the best introductions I’ve ever had in my career, wow! Thank you to everyone that came out! To Galería de la Raza, to Bob Guter, and everyone that made tonight a success! Check out some fotoso from el Show!
Right when we got there the bookstore was ready! they were so thoughtful and patient and had the mic and chairs ready, aaaand they had bottle of water for us! I was so busy and frantic I don’t even know if I was able to get the bottle to all the writers.
When I got there, people were already there waiting for the show to start. I handed the program to everybody and made sure to keep one for later.
The bookstore had our back, look how prepared they were with the books pertaining to the writers!
I had the pleasure of hosting the show with the incredible Sandra García Rivera, who hosts and curates the Lunada Literary Lounge at Galería de la Raza. She was so much fun to work with. Without her and Galería, this event would have never happened. She did something very important that night, she reminded that we had to pay homage, respects, and take a moment to name all the poets that have done literary events like this in San Francisco in the past. She did, she named a long list and it was incredible to find out some of them were in the audience, what an honor.
She bookstore kept getting fuller and fuller, I was afraid we were going to get in trouble. 
Harold Terezón
Denise Benavides
Very very honored to have had Alejandro Murguía the poet laureate of San Francisco be a feature at the show. His performance was incredible.
Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano
Christina Perez
Lito Sandoval, Harold Terezón, and Baruch Porras-Hernandez
DON’T MISS next week’s part two of ¿Donde Esta Mi Gente? At Magnet on 18th in the Castro! 7:30pm FREE!
Check it out, we went on a walk with Señor Sandoval and got to know him a little. He is hella funny, intelligent, and likes Superheros. Here is an interview with him, and don’t miss him tonight at Books Inc. In the Castro 7:30 FREE.
Hey everyone, tonight is the night!
Don’t miss the reading at Books Inc. In the Castro, on Market Street!
April 5th Books Inc. 2275 Market Street.
7:30pm Free
with readings/recitations from
Alejandro Murguía
Sandra García Rivera
Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano
Denise Benavides
Lito Sandoval
Harold Terezón
hosted by Baruch Porras-Hernandez and Sandra García Rivera!
Also, check out or newest video installment, an interview with Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano!
see you tonight, Gente!
Buenos dias! Ready for the fist installment of video interviews with the participating artists for ¿Donde Esta Mi Gente? Our first writer is very special to me, to the community, to writing students everywhere, she is a Writerscorps teaching artists, organizer, singer, and on top of that poeta. Check out Sandra García Rivera, and don’t miss the reading this Saturday at Books Inc!
HERE WE GO!
Today was a great day, gente! I walked around all over the city putting post card stacks on places and leaving posters with people at stores. I tried to be as nice as I could, but I could tell the workers were tired, had this “dafuckisthisshit?” look on their faces. I wanted to hug them and say, “Me too, I feel you, been up since 5 am, just please, please don’t throw this poster away.” but I knew that is the last thing they wanted. The rain was going crazy but I got some posters printed! My mission was to hand out as many postcards as I could, and make it to Books Inc on Market(our venue on the 5th!) before they closed, having the posters in my hands felt gooooood.
I tried to give as many people as I could on the street (when I encountered dry parts) post cards for the show and tried to tell people who seemed like they were nice, though some folks were very hesitant to take a card.
Things I was told when trying to tell people about the show. 1. What kindadamn fool tries to promote a poetry show in the rain? My response -the show is this Saturday, I have no choice! Take this postcard!!! 2. Poetry?….Ew…. My response -You are so handsome. 3. People don’t want poetry on a Saturday night, they wanna get laid! My response -Hahaha, yes, but maybe they’ll meet someone at the show, or the poetry will inspire them to go get their groove on, I have faith in my people (the gays and the latinos and the queers) that this show is going to be great! TAKE A POST CARD!
When I finally got to Books Inc, they were more than happy to take the posters. I’m so grateful for them and for their support of their literary community. It was nice to see them so prepared not just for our show but for National Poetry Month. Check out this shiny new collection of poems and they got the Poet Laureate Alejandro Murguía’s book there, ready for our event! So grateful. While I was there it was very inspiring to see the huge poetry section by gay and queer writers. I saw some friends, some folks I know, saw the Divining Divas book there and thought of Michael, and James, and Regie and all the folks that have inspired me and supported me. And of course like a true selfcentered writer, I tried to picture my book among the others as well….sigh…someday. A boy can dream…till then I know you are all planning on going to the show! ¿Donde Esta Mi Gente? is coming!
Of course I wanted to buy all the books, but I’m working odd jobs here and there and making a tiny tiny paycheck at the coffee shop, so I was not able to buy any books, but, if I had money, I would buy this book. Can’t wait to read it when I can, it is on my list of things I wanna read. So grateful for all the homo writers doing their thing.
By the end all the shops and stores that would put up the poster, closed. It seemed like the Castro suddenly got covered with tired uninterested young bitter gay men. The rain got harder and I got chubbytired, so I ended the day, the way a bigboy should, WITH ICECREAM, nenas! Drenched in rain, I ate smiling because I handed out a ton of postcards and told strangers about the show, about poetry, why it is important, and why Latino writers are important. So many people didn’t know that the Poet Laureate of San Francisco right now, is Latino. Surrounded by very tired angry gay boys who were all cute, but none of them were smiling, I destroyed that icecream cone! 
The first show is this Saturday at Books Inc. On Market at 7:30pm, it is FREE! If you wanna help out with the festival, watch this video below and SUPPORT! Coperacha! Coperacha!
Whats up Gente? We are so close to making this happen. We want this to be a top notch event, and that every writer will get a little bit of money for their performance. Go to this IndieGoGo campaign to help us make this show a success. Also, watch the funny youtube video!
WHERE MY PEOPLE AT?!
This show, this website, this festival, is hopefully going to answer that very question. Hi folks! My name is Baruch Porras-Hernandez, I am a writer performer based in San Francisco. For the past 10 years I’ve been working as an actor, performance artist, writer, performance poet, I’ve been in slams, featured all over the place, performed in D.C., Canada, Queer Slams, Poetry Cabarets, but in that whole time I had not experience a lineup of Latino writers until I stepped into the Lunada Literary Lounge and Open Mic at Galería de la Raza. Sandra García Rivera and the folks at Galería changed my life. I realized I had never been in a space full of Latino artists like me, or encountered a Latino focused event. The Lunada, and Galería de la Raza opened its arms to me and was like, “We’re right here, bienvenido.” and I felt like I was home. So I decided to continue that feeling, help Galería continue their mission of supporting and promoting the incredible work of Latino Artists in the Bay Area with this poetry festival ¿DONDE ESTA MI GENTE?
The title is a question because for the longest time, while I was trying to keep my head above water in a whiteartist world (no shade, LOVE my white artist friends) I kept asking that question, ¿Dónde esta mi gente? I didn’t know about Galería, I didn’t know about the Lunadas and how important they are. In a city like San Francisco, chop full of all sorts of Latinos we don’t even have a Latino Theatre Company, which is why Galería is so important. Which this festival I hope to create more buzz, more focus for Latino writers, (not that they need it, my fellow Latinos work it! And they shine!) but to also bring it out to the rest of the city, not just the Mission, the first show will be on Market street, near that Church and Market area in an awesome bookstore that supports the literary community Books Inc.! The second show will be in the heat of the Castro, at Magnet on 18th, right across the street from Badlands, haha. And the last show with the biggest line up will be at one of the best spots in the whole city, Galería de la Raza, for one big fundraising party.
I hope you join me, and the other 22 escritores, poetas, artistas in celebrating the Latino voice and come enjoy poetry each night by a great line up of fantastic writers.
3 shows! 3 different increible line ups, 1 city!
Check out the Participating artist page to find out more about the writers!
Go to our shows page to find the when, where and what time of each show!
Go to our Facebook page, and join our community https://www.facebook.com/dondeestamigente
Go to our Facebook invite, and help us spread the word! https://www.facebook.com/events/713449205366448/
Stay tuned for more info! And some awesome videos to come!
¿Donde Esta Mi Gente? 