6. In conversation with Gabriela Portillo Alvarado

This episode features a conversation with poet and undergraduate student Gabriela Portillo Alvarado. Gabriela shares about their faith, their research, and their poetry (including an exclusive poem read for the first time!). Presented in three segments, this episode begins with the interview, followed by the Q and A session with attendees and closing with the remix, where the hosts of the Soul Force Ones podcast contemplate a few big themes from the interview.

YOU can be a part of the next episode. Join us on Tuesday, January 11th at 7pm pacific time to see the interview with Dan O'Connell, co-author of the new book, In the Struggle: Scholars and the Fight against Industrial Agribusiness in California. 

Information can be found here: https://westernfriend.org/event/interview-dan-oconnell

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 2:52 Gabriela's story as a young, Latinx Quaker
• 5:50 On their research and integration of Quaker faith
• 8:39 On discomfort and the responses to their keynote
• 12:12 On death and ongoing exploitation
• 20:50 On intergenerational trauma
• 23:08 On their relationship with the those they work with in the collection
• 26:56 On (not) finding balance between academic work and creative work
• 29:11 On the experience and process of writing in multiple languages
• 32:30 Relationship between death and poetry? Editing!
• 33:36 NEW POEM!
• 39:54 Respecting cultural and sacred items
• 41:23 On using poetry to present new perspectives
• 44:48 Q and A
• 1:07:42 The Remix with the Soul Force Ones