Toni Lynn Junious: You might have heard self-care, but with us soul-care is mind, body, soul, and community.

So it's also just not yourself, but how do we all collectively come together?

Alyssa Ajay Junious: Once you come into this space, you already belong.

It's not something that has to be earned.

Once you cross the threshold, you're family.

We're bayanihan.

Like, it's all love here.

So that's part of, like, the healing practice of belonging.

You don't have to prove yourself.

If you feel called, if you feel like you connect, then you do.

Rio Villa Ezell: I find myself in Carlsbad and in Encinitas today to meet with two sisters on a mission, a second generation Filipino and black women.

They intentionally bring arts and wellness resources to those excluded or unrepresented in similar spaces.

The sisters encourage multi-generational families, women, and people of color to create and connect inspired by their own multicultural upbringing.

They often come to this space to host events.

So today they've set up a rock-decorating activity to inspire conversation and introspection.

Toni: You want to start?

Alyssa: I guess I'll start 'cause I'm the ate, okay?

So ate goes first.

Rio: I'm the ate also.

Alyssa: Okay, ate love.

So my name is Alyssa Ajay Junious, and I am the co-founder of Soultry Sisters.

Toni: And I am Toni Lynn Junious, and I'm the other half of Soultry Sisters and the other co-founder as well.

Rio: How do you normally start your events and workshops?

How do you bring people into the space with you?

Toni: We like to start with the cleansing ritual.

The bayabas is dried guava leaves.

And we like to use it instead of sage or Palo Santo since we are about remembering and reclaiming practices from our own heritage.

Alyssa: For our holistic healing it's used as a cleanser.

So Filipino practitioners, they do use this, like Shamans.

When you're either cleansing your house or cleansing yourself, a lot of times, like, because of Catholicism, people use, like, the water, but our ancestors before, you know, Catholicism would use nature and herbs.

Rio: I never knew that, and I grew up with guava.

No.

Guava trees in our backyard.

And I had no idea that there was any significance to them or anything, like, sacred about them.

Toni: And we're also about sustainability.

So it's also using, you know, the whole plant in the different ways in order to, you know, use less, reduce, reuse, repurpose, all of those things.

And then as you're cleansing your body, you want to think of what you're letting go of and then what you kind of want to call in.

Rio: They practice and encourage art and craft-making using things they find in nature.

So we're decorating rocks with words or symbols that come up while we chat.

♪♪♪ Toni: This specific craft we did at our very first event in January of 2019, so our very first Soultry Sisters event.

We keep them as tokens to remind us as our--of our journey with Soultry Sisters.

We wanted to do this craft.

So we also have something to leave with the community.

Rio: What was your inspiration for starting Soultry Sisters?

Toni: When we went to a wellness festival out here in California.

And it was one of those really big festivals where, like, all the wellness people who are known goes, but when we went, it was, one, expensive, and then there wasn't a lot of people of color that looked like us there.

So it wasn't accessible.

Like, we had to save our money to go to only one day of the festival, and so we were like, "This is amazing, and we want to do this with our community, but why is it, you know, so far away and expensive?"

We were like, "Oh, let's do something for the New Year."

So then we had a New Year's event, and then people loved it, and then we had a galentine's event for February, and then they loved it and loved it, and we kept doing events every month for the first year of 2019.

And then I moved to the east coast to DC for grad school.

But we've continued and grown ever since, and now we do virtual and in-person events, but yeah, we started small.

And our very first event, Xenia the owner of this rock shop was one of our partners and collaborators, and we've worked with her ever since.

Alyssa: I just selfishly wanted to work with my sister.

Like, she was so far away, and I just missed her so much and I just really enjoy, like, our relationship.

And everything we do with Soultry Sisters is a reflection of what we do with our soultry mama.

Like, all the crafts that we're doing, like, we grew up doing.

Rio: Who is soultry mama, and was that something that already existed before Soultry Sisters like that name?

Alyssa: So soultry mama is our mother Evangelline Junious.

Rio: Who's here with us.

Alyssa: She's here with us today.

Always in the background, but she is our rock.

So she is symbolized in this activity as well.

And through all the events, she's always been there to help us organize.

And a lot of the practices that we share are things that we grew up doing with her.

So she guides us.

Toni: And ever since we were little she would take us to, like, Michael's to do crafts.

She does crocheting.

We've done scrapbooking.

We would paint.

She's also a seamstress, self-taught.

So she would do that stuff for us.

And so ever since we were young we've always been creative.

We've always moved 'cause we're also military kids 'cause both our mom and our dad was in the Navy.

And so we understand that, like, having to move around you don't always get to be with your relatives or your family or your best friends, but we've always found a way to cultivate that community, and that was important to us when we created Soultry.

It was like, "Oh, we want people to feel like sisters."

But a lot of people are like, "Oh, I'm not close to my biological family or they move around 'cause, like, it's a military town."

And so we were like, "Oh, what about soul sisters?"

So we combined soul sisters and sultry to Soultry Sisters, and here we are.

And we also talk about soul-care.

So you might have heard self-care, but with us soul-care is mind, body, soul, and community.

So it's also just not yourself, but how do we all collectively come together?

Alyssa: Once you come into this space, you already belong.

It's not something that has to be earned.

It's like it's our--it's part of you coming in.

Like, when you--once you cross the threshold, you're family.

We're bayanihan.

Like, it's all love here.

So that's part of, like, the healing practice of belonging.

You don't have to prove yourself.

There's no, like, requirement.

It's just, like, if you feel called, if you feel like you connect, then you do.

♪♪♪ Rio: What are some things that your mom taught you that you bring into your Soultry Sisters programs?

Alyssa: While we did these different practices, she would tell us stories about growing up in the Philippines and she shared with us that coming here to America she wasn't able to bring, like, her guitar, she wasn't able to bring all of her--all the things that her father made.

He used to make sculptures out of soap.

And her mom, our grandmother, was a seamstress.

So she wasn't able to bring those actual objects.

So instead, she's able to pass down some of the rituals from the Philippines.

It's through creative expression.

Toni: In our events, we always are, you know, thinking of the ways that we can reduce, like, our environmental impact.

And so that's something that soultry mama still teaches us to this day.

And especially, like, Filipinos, like, we've been doing this.

Our culture has been doing this for a long time.

And now, like, with westernized culture, they try to make it a consumer thing.

That you have to buy something to be sustainable.

But that's why we try to teach our community, is that you can get a rock or a leaf or something from your own home or outside and you don't have to buy anything, right?

Like, it's accessible.

Alyssa: Another tradition or a ritual that we do in all of our events is the practice of, like, feeding our community.

So every time we have an event, we're always, like, having snacks.

And it's always a party.

So our family--like, Filipino parties is a big part of our culture bringing people together to celebrate anything and everything.

It's, like, subconscious.

Like, we don't consciously know.

Like, we're doing this because all of the things, but because of our close relationship to our mother and, like, observing her and how she's been able to make creative expression a part of her life.

And so as we've cultivated community and created these activities, these soul-care practices, it's only right that it reflects how we were raised.

Rio: Right.

Alyssa: So it's something that when we look back it's like, "Oh, wow, it is all connected."

Rio: I love that because that is being creative.

You are finding things in your own home, in your own community, in your own environment to do things with.

It's not--creativity isn't necessarily like creating something out of thin air.

It's like looking around you and finding inspiration in a rock, or in a leaf, or in your mother, or in each other, in your sister.

Alyssa: Exactly.

For us, we look at being creative as a healing process.

That's why we call it creative expression.

And collective healing is like we're doing it together.

♪♪♪ Rio: How do you make your programs accessible to people?

Toni: Yeah, it's really important to us with our mission.

It's to make our programs and events or workshops accessible and affordable to our community because that's why we started.

And so we're always going back to our route and our why and our purpose.

And so something that's been important when we talk about creativity, we say creative expression instead of art.

So we do call ourselves an art and wellness collective because we are artists and creatives as well, but we feel like sometimes people feel intimidated by saying, "Oh, we're going to do an art workshop."

They're like, "Oh, I'm not a painter, or I'm not a poet, or all these things."

And we don't always identify as those types of artists either and things like that that kind of break down those walls that people think that art is only in a gallery, or a theater, or published somewhere big.

We're like, "No.

These are everyday practices that you can do that have been passed down from our mom and our elders to us, and that's something that we continue with our community."

Again, we know that not everyone can afford to come to workshops all the time.

So we have a scholarship fund for people who are feeling generous and can support us financially to donate, and then we have people apply who are going through either a financial hardship or something in their life where they can't necessarily afford to come to these workshops as a way to make it more accessible to folks for our festival.

Last year we had about 50% of the attendees were scholarship recipients.

So that was something that was super important to us, was to make sure that black, Filipina, people of color were able to come and attend and not feel that like that wasn't a place for them.

Alyssa: We don't have a barrier--an economical barrier for people to receive our arts and wellness experiences.

It's about, like, creating the opportunity to connect over like, "Oh, you can't connect with us if you can't afford it."

We don't want that barrier.

And that energy of reciprocity is really important to us.

Toni: Or in wellness we believe it's a birthright.

So, again, we don't feel like money should be an issue or a barrier for people coming in.

We believe that everyone should have access to be in community with people that look like them.

They should be able to be in a space where they belong.

♪♪♪ Rio: We finished decorating our rocks and continued our conversation outside where we could contribute our art to a community rock garden.

♪♪♪ Rio: Here I get to ask Alyssa and Toni about identity and how they feel being multicultural.

Toni: Yeah, I feel like growing up it was hard 'cause people would be like, "Oh, you're half Filipino, you're half black."

And so we'd feel like we're not enough.

Or I feel like I would feel like, "Oh, I'm not Filipino enough or I'm not black enough."

But I feel like now in my journey I've embraced that I'm both Filipina and I'm black, and so I'm all of my cultures, especially 'cause our parents really instilled both Filipino culture in us and our African-American culture.

And so I feel like now in my journey, that's what we really try to instill in our community, is that, like, remembering and reclaiming your identity, your culture, wherever you come from, and really just embracing all of that.

Alyssa: Yeah.

And we want everyone to be their authentic selves.

We want everyone to bring their whole selves when they come to Soultry.

So we always like to celebrate that part.

So for us, we celebrate all parts of our identity.

We celebrate our black culture.

We celebrate Filipino culture.

Rio: We return our rocks to nature signifying some of the new lessons I learned from my talk with the sisters.

I thanked them for their enriching work bringing Filipino values and sisterhood to everyone.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Jay Jay Maniquis: Ah, the library, a place most of us only frequent during our childhood and school years.

I'm in Chula Vista to visit the Filipinos of South Bay Exhibit, a well-curated summary of who we are, how we got here, and how we've shaped American history.

The exhibit is here to teach people of all ages and backgrounds about their own history or that of their neighbors.

I'm getting a personal tour by two powerhouses in education, art, and organizations who are behind the exhibit's creation, Dr. Judy Patacsil, FANHS president emeritus and college professor, and Anamaria Cabato, PASACAT executive director.

♪♪♪ Judy Patacsil: So the Filipino-American experience has to start in the Philippines.

And so this part of the Filipinos of South Bay Exhibit includes a map of the Philippines and also more of the indigenous connections to the Philippines.

The Filipinos came to the United States.

Again, they came on the Manila Acapulco Galleon trade ships.

During the time of Spanish colonization, Filipinos were indentured to work on those galleon trade ships, and they actually jump-shipped.

And there's a documentation of landing of Filipinos in what is now Morro Bay, California dating back to October 1587.

That is why October was declared by the Filipino-American National Historical Society Funds as Filipino-American History Month.

Dating back to the 1760s, Filipinos jump-shipped and started settlements in what is now the bayous of Louisiana.

Jay Jay: Just right outside of New Orleans.

I've actually been to that area.

Judy: Yes, so people don't know this history.

They're surprised that Filipinos are the first documented Asians to cross and have a settlement even before the American Revolution.

Jay Jay: This is the 20--early 20th century?

Judy: At this time the Philippines is a territory of the United States and Filipinos were allowed to come without any immigration restrictions, and they were actually recruited, and Filipinos were allowed to come to school here both colleges and universities and high schools.

The Pensionado Program was an official program, but they were also pen boys who came.

My father came as a pen boy.

Jay Jay: As a pen boy.

Jay Jay: The Pensionado Act also drew many Filipino students to self-finance their overseas education known as the Fountain Pen Boys.

Judy: And so some of these pictures depict that history of the farmworkers to the Cicadas and Hawaii who worked on the plantations, in the fields of California all the way up to Washington, but they would get recruited to work in the Alaska Canneries.

So those were the Alaska rose.

Filipinos faced a lot of racism.

But World War II hit, and because of World War II Japanese invaded the Philippines.

So many of the manongs who worked in the fields, they signed up to fight for their homelands.

They were allowed citizenship.

The end of the war, Philippines was declared independent in 1946, and the War Brides Act.

Those Filipino manongs were allowed to bring their brides or fiancés, and that's where many of the community began.

The Immigration Act of 1965, the Philippines was allowed 20,000 to immigrate, and that's when the community really began to grow.

What was also significant was the second generation became of age and Filipino-American identity began.

They actually--they're the ones who started the Delano-- the Great Delano Grape Strike.

Cesar Chavez gets credit for it, but it was-- little is known that the Filipino started it.

So that was part of that Filipino-American identity, a sense of pride and respect to the manongs.

Jay Jay: San Diego is a huge military town.

We all know that.

Can you talk a little bit about the military presence and what we have here?

Judy: Starts with the Filipinos who served in World War II.

The Rescission Act cut the benefits out, and Filipinos of World War II were the only ones who that impacted.

We worked on bipartisan legislation to pass the awarding of the Congressional Gold Medal to those Filipino World War II veterans to make sure that the Filipino veterans of World War II got the respect and the recognition that they deserved.

And I was able to--so proud to receive the Congressional Gold Medal on behalf of my father.

Jay Jay: That must have meant a lot.

Judy: It was.

It was very emotional.

I was able to go to Washington DC to receive it.

Many of the Filipino-American educators are the sons and daughters of the Filipino World War II veterans as well as the Filipinos in the Navy.

Jay Jay: Wow.

So it's almost like the parents, and then the kids are over here.

Judy: The Filipino-American educators especially in South Bay really made a difference in, one, the Filipino language becoming recognized as a world language in the K-12 systems and it's--you know, was taught at the colleges, but also Filipino-American studies.

Jay Jay: When I was at San Diego State taking one of the first Filipino Tagalog classes that was offered as a prerequisite at SDSU, that really helped me along my journey to learning Tagalog and, like, being more in touch with my Filipino heritage.

Judy: Representation matters when you have that sense of connection to our identity when we know history, we know south.

It really makes a difference.

Jay Jay: Now we have Ana here.

But out of respect in the Filipino culture, it would be my first reflex to call you auntie, but you said Ana is just fine.

Anamaria Cabato: Ana is fine.

Yeah.

Jay Jay: All right.

Anamaria: Or even ate.

Jay Jay: Ate.

Okay, ate too, yeah.

Anamaria: PASACAT, FANHS, and Copal were the major organizers of the FOSBE Exhibit.

PASACAT is the Philippine-American Society and Cultural Arts Troupe.

It was established in 1970.

I'm an original dancer.

Jay Jay: Wow.

Anamaria: So yeah, wow.

That dates me, but that's okay because this has been part of my journey and also part of my formation as a Filipino, Filipino-American.

We've taught hundreds of Philippine dancers and musicians about the culture through the Philippine dance experience.

Jay Jay: You have a lot about San Diego history here.

Anamaria: Yeah.

Jay Jay: And I see the 1998 Super Bowl.

When I was a kid I was fortunate enough to go to that game.

Anamaria: Oh, that's so awesome.

Jay Jay: And I probably saw you performing on the field.

Anamaria: Yeah, we were part of the pregame show.

And so it was truly an honor.

They had called in all the cultural groups in San Diego County, and we represented the Philippines.

Jay Jay: Moving on to this part of the museum, Fiestas de Faith.

And Filipinos, you--I'm Catholic, so I know about the Santo Niño.

Anamaria: It has allowed us to express our traditions and keep them still here even in the Diaspora.

Can you imagine that, you know, you're away from your country, but still you connect with your town fiestas.

And the children come.

New generations are still learning about the culture.

When you see Philippine dance, that puts a smile on your heart.

When you hear the sounds of the rondalla playing, that puts a smile on your heart because it reminisces to the time when you are in the Philippines.

Now, I'm second generation.

I was born and raised here.

So my exposure to the culture through Philippine dance and music made me embrace it so much to the point where my cousins from the Philippines would say, "Oh my gosh, you know more than me."

The Philippine dance was very important to the community here.

Jay Jay: And it still is till this day.

Anamaria: Yeah.

Jay Jay: I see it all over town when I attend festivals and performances.

Anamaria: And that's why it's important that we all try to capture our own histories, because you never know on down the line who's going to need to know what.

I collected souvenir programs 'cause my parents were involved in the '60s, and they become documents of history of how the community was at that time.

Jay Jay: Well, thanks for showing me.

Anamaria: Sure.

Jay Jay: Can you talk about how you personally started your journey with dance?

Anamaria: Well, I remember being at the age of maybe 8 or 10 I was always questioning the color of my skin, but it wasn't until my parents took me to see the Bayanihan National Philippine Dance Company that I understood what Filipino was because when you saw a program of Philippine dance you saw dances from the Quaternary Era, which sort of represented dances of Africa, and then you saw dances of the Spanish influences, which represented to me Mexico, and then, of course, from the Mindanao cultures where a lot of the Asian influence was very relevant.

So I go, "Wow.

The Philippines is the center of the world.

It has all the cultures."

And I fell in love with it.

I didn't dream of being a ballerina.

I dreamed of being a Philippine dancer.

Jay Jay: How did your journey start here in South Bay as a educator and where you are today?

Judy: When I took my first Filipino-American studies class it was here in the South Bay at Southwestern College, and I learned about the Filipino-American experience and I learned how much my father was in Filipino-American history from being a pen boy to being of the manong generation working the fields to serving in World War II, and then my mom coming over as a war bride.

It just instilled a sense of pride in who I was.

And bringing that forward, when I got to my position as a counselor professor at Miramar College, I was determined to make sure we taught Filipino-American experience at the college.

Education is a tool of empowerment.

And I think it has empowered our Filipino-American community.

Anamaria: Community, connections, and then contributions 'cause once you become aware of who you are and are confident in who you are, then that's when you're able to contribute in a positive way to your community.

The bayanihan is coming together.

And in those early days in the '60s it was about coming together, wanting to be together, and being a community.

And then in kapwa it's hoping to find that there's beauty in the we and not just focusing on the I and that the good that we bring together is more powerful than what I could bring alone.

Judy: Kapwa is the essence of our shared identity.

And this exhibit, it tells a Filipino-American experience our story of our shared identity.

And from that we walk away, I think, with a deep sense of pride.

Jay Jay: Well, I'd like to thank you two for your contributions and for educating us about everything here today.

Anamaria: Well, thank you.

Jay Jay: Maraming salamat.

Anamaria: Same to you.

Judy: Maraming salamat.

Same to you as well.

Thank you so much.

Jay Jay: Like the days I spent studying Tagalog in my own library at SCSU, I feel a newfound appreciation for those who teach and guide the Fil-Am community like Judy, Ana, and the other community leaders behind this exhibit.

♪♪♪ Jay Jay: Today--I'm I looking at the camera or not?

My YouTube thinking, okay I was like--my YouTube head came on real quick.

male: You were looking right at me.

Jay Jay: I was looking right at you, I'm like, "Today."

Rio: I also have family in Ilocos and in Bicol.

So yeah, we could be related, auntie.

Alyssa: Oh, she's a OG soultry sister.

♪♪♪ female announcer: Support for this program comes from the KPBS Explore Local Content Fund, supporting new ideas and programs for San Diego.