For Immediate Release
April 23, 2011
Contact: Melissa Reyes, LFS-San Francisco State University lfs.sfsu@gmail.com
Ninth Annual Diwang Pinay to Highlight Importance of Sacred Bonds of Motherhood and Sisterhood
Themed “Motherhood, Sisterhood, Sustained,” the event will raise funds for exposure trips to the Philippines for the International Women’s Alliance First General Assembly and the International League of Peoples’ Struggle Conference. Funds will also be donated to various communities in the Philippines
San Francisco, CA— On Friday, April 29, 2011 Babae San Francisco-Gabriela USA, League of Filipino Students, and Kappa Psi Epsilon will host the 9th Annual Filipina Women’s Showcase, Diwang Pinay. With the recent attacks on women’s reproductive rights by House Republicans, the women of these organizations will come together in defense of our mothers and sisters. The House Republicans’ proposals in Congress would indefinitely slash funding for Planned Parenthood and services for women, such as abortions and family planning services. With Babae’s ongoing campaign to fight Violence Against Women, this campaign includes the State’s violent attacks on women’s most basic human rights. By highlighting motherhood, sisterhood and our collective reality, we hope to celebrate our triumphs in the face of oppressive power.
Diwang Pinay (Spirit of the Filipina) is an annual performance and silent auction showcasing Filipina/Filipina-American performers, writers and artists. This event serves as one of very few venues solely dedicated to providing pinays from the Bay Area and beyond a platform to proudly share and express their struggles and triumphs.
This year’s celebration is themed “Motherhood, Sisterhood, Sustained,” to highlight the importance of the sacred bonds of motherhood and sisterhood and how essential these bonds are in sustaining healthy communities. By strengthening our connections as mothers and sisters, our relationship with systems of oppression becomes less difficult to fight. When we reclaim our sacred bond and work toward interdependence in the defense of our communities, we are victorious in every battle against those that deem us unworthy of our basic rights, like the choice to control and determine the rights to our bodies, whether that be access to abortion or family planning and reproductive rights services.
This year’s Diwang Pinay hosts an array of performances from talented pinays from San Francisco and the greater Bay Area, with acts like spoken word artist and rapper Ruby Ibarra, singing and poetry by members of the Galing Bata Afterschool Program, and an in-progress teaser for Pinay Stories, a production by an entire Filipina cast. There will be an art gallery on display and a silent auction showcasing art work of different mediums by artists such as Dianne Que of Hurley Sashimi Handmade, Faye Lacanilao, Raisa Cuevas, Vee Caragay, and a live art session by Niki Escobar.
Join us on Friday, April 29, 2011, from 7 to 9 P.M. at the Cesar Chavez Student Center-Jack Adams Hall at San Francisco State University: 1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132. The suggested donation will be a sliding scale of $7-12, $5 for students ages 10-17 with a valid student ID, and free for children under the age of 10. For more information, visit Diwang Pinay’s official website at https://sites.google.com/site/sfdiwangpinay.
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“The very time I thought I was lost, my dungeon shook and my chains fell off.”
