Dreamweavers

The Dreamweavers project has set out to document and uplift Orange County youth voices through media projects that center self-expression and storytelling. We believe that Orange County youth have seas of stories, that, through acts of artistic creation, can be moved to nourish, heal, and build community. Our current team members’ art forms include writing, music, visual arts/design, and video production, and we embrace our multiple languages of English, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Tagalog in our creative work. The term Dreamweavers is taken from Marjorie Evasco’s essay “Other Voice: Response to Anzaldua” (Evasco, 1987). Evasco lovingly uses this term to name her Pinay elders (Nanay Tinay, Manding Marintay, Insi Lolang, and Nanay Isin) who were weavers of tikog and romblon mats that they sold to pay for their brothers’ education and meet their family’s needs.

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Evasco wonders about her Pinay elders’ “subterfuge poetry” as they wove their hopes, dreams, and frustrations into these colorful mats and patterns. Like Manang Evasco, we refuse to be engaged in erasure. We honor her dreamweavers and all the dreamweaving that happens in our communities as we believe that our art and our dreaming is often a part of our day-to-day activities - even and especially the things we don’t always consider to be noteworthy or a form of art.