Saludos!
I’m Chris Rodriguez - educator, bombero, musician, and writer. For over ten years, I’ve been on a journey to heal the effects of colonization within myself and my communities. As a child of Boricua and Cuban immigrants who moved from the Caribbean to the Bronx to suburban New Jersey, I was witness to how intergenerational trauma can manifest as assimilation and disconnection from our roots, our bodies, nature, and each other. Through my diverse professional and creative roles, I work to heal this trauma through art, ritual, education, storytelling, and community-making.
What happens to Afro-Indigenous healing practices when they are mediated by profit-driven, data-mining tech companies? Or when practitioners are seduced by the promise of alternative incomes driven by social media virality? Rooted, relational practices turn into abstracted, distorted products designed to keep us engaged and consuming.