Colorado Block
This beautiful block has many names. It’s known by some as the Colorado block. It’s an expansion on a simple pinwheel design which has been made more complex to become what’s also known as a Danish Windmill pattern. The blades of the windmill are reflected in the alternate colored blues, and recall the classic Germanic icon moving in the wind,
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Anissa Pulcheon
Artist & Volunteer
Anissa is a DAAP graduate who uses her education to help others. Her interest in community and the betterment of those around her has led to volunteering with Girls Rock Cincinnati, and involvement in the general music scene of Cincinnati. We talked about involvement in UC, what it can be like as a woman in the Cincy music scene, and the importance of representation.
Now that we're recording, why don't you go ahead and tell me your name, your pronouns, and why do you think I asked you to be here today?
My name is Anissa Pulcheon. I use she/her pronouns. I think that you asked me because I am, quote unquote, involved.
Awesome. You’re right! I asked you to be here because you're involved with so many different things, and I also think that you have opinions and you can tell people those opinions.
Yeah, I do think that not everyone can say that about themselves. So yes, I am proud of that. Thank you for noticing and thank you for having me here!
Why don't you tell me a little bit about your activity within your community?
There are some different levels. When I was in college I was really involved with leadership things. Namely DAAP Tribunal. I got involved in that freshman year. My second semester of freshman year they were like, ‘we don't have a president’ and I was like, ‘I'll do it’. Then there was a voting process. I was involved with leadership through all of college. Then I got involved with Design In Mind my last few years as well. I started a band while I was in college- 2016, I guess. I have been doing that ever since. It started out as just me with the drums, and then it grew from there. Last year I helped start Girls Rock Cincinnati, which is a non-profit here in town that is a summer camp for girls and gender variant youth age 12 to 18 to learn how to play a new instrument, form a band, do creative workshops, that kind of thing. What else do I do? I also just love food, and get very into hosting food events at my house and stuff like that. I might also start to get more involved with the Asian American community here in Cincinnati- the people who run Asian food fests and stuff like that. I recently got in contact with them cause they're a bit older than me and have been invited to help do that stuff. It's all schedule pending. And then I'm a barista as well, which I feel like lends itself to community cause it's kind of like the gathering spot. But I'd say my biggest thing is Girls Rock Cincinnati. It's my biggest passion right now for sure.
Are you doing a lot of work with them right now?
Yes. Last year we had four organizers, and then this year we have six- which is really great cause we can get a lot more done. I'm in charge of social media, making all our branding, web stuff, a little bit of merch, events. Right now our camper applications are open and we're about to open our volunteer applications, so we're really pushing the community outreach and marketing. That's a lot of what we're doing right now. It's a lot of work. Now until when camp happens in July is gonna be just be getting busier and busier.
So why do you choose to spend your time on things like this?
I think mainly, most simply it comes out of boredom. I am always doing too much. My brain is just always going. Not doing things just tends to lend itself to depression and stuff like that. I'm always trying to be involved with things. That's for my own personal well-being and also because I feel super passionately about it and I think it's the thing in life that I'm good at- organizing and doing events and things like that. I think it's what I'm good at. So why would I try to do anything else? Specifically for Girls Rock I feel super passionately about it, cause music has always been a really big part of my life.
MY STORY IS THAT I DIDN'T THINK THAT IT WAS POSSIBLE FOR ME TO START A BAND. I WAS LIKE ‘THAT'S NOT REAL, YOU HAVE TO BE REALLY GOOD AT GUITAR AND A BOY TO DO THAT’.
I had this pretty long relationship in college where my partner told me that my music wasn't good enough to be put into the world or put on the internet. Then we broke up. I kinda started to suck it up and then I was in the honors program here at UC. When you're in the honors program, you have to complete a certain amount of ‘experiences’. Usually keep a journal or a blog or something to document and reflect and do other things that you wouldn't do just through your major. One of my final ones was I decided to record as many of my songs as I could and just put them on Bandcamp or put them somewhere in the world. I did that and then I had a little show. I had my friends over to sit on the couch and just listen to me singing my songs, because none of them had ever really heard them. I got a mini grant, I think it was $500, to do something with that.
Where was the grant from?
From UC honors. You can apply for scholarships to go through your experiences if you write an essay. Honors was really great. Erin Alanson I think was my advisor. I think she got promoted since, but she was really good at encouraging me to do something that was unconventional. A lot of honors experiential projects were lab research, or study abroad. She was very down with me doing something that wasn't that.
Well that's really cool that she encouraged you to do something out-of-the-box.
I feel like a lot of my DAAP professors weren't encouraging me to do out-of-the-box things. So it was nice to have one person in my college experience telling me that.
So how did you end up getting the guts to commit to making a whole song and performing those in front of people?
The whole song thing was just already happening. I would write songs and maybe record them on Garage Band, but I never showed them to anyone. It feels so long ago, even though it wasn't. It was maybe four years ago. I think it was like, ‘why am I not just putting it online?’ It’s so easy with Garage Band. It wasn't good. They weren’t great. It was just accepting that they didn't have to be great for me to put them online.
THERE'S LOTS OF DIFFERENT STATISTICS ABOUT HOW MEN WILL APPLY FOR A JOB, EVEN IF THEY'RE ONLY 60% QUALIFIED FOR IT. WOMEN WILL ONLY APPLY TO SOMETHING IF THEY ARE 100% QUALIFIED FOR IT. JUST HAVING THE CONFIDENCE THAT A MAN WOULD TO DO THE SAME THING. TO DO SOMETHING SHITTY.
So that was a big thing. That happened when I was 21. The idea behind Girls Rock is that most of us who are involved with it right now have always loved music but never felt like we had that support or confidence to be in a band or learn guitar. I was never encouraged to learn guitar myself. I played classical music in school and outside of school. I think my mom saw guitar as rock and roll and sex and drugs. She was like ‘why would you wanna do that?’ And I was like ‘because music has always been a part of my life and now it's part of the language that I use to express myself’. At Girls Rock all of us kind of agree that it's serving our younger selves to be giving an opportunity to these middle schoolers and high schoolers to do what we wanted to do in a really great safe environment. And Girls Rock is also cool because we're trying to build a multigenerational community. I think a lot of things that you could do around music, especially in the scene, are bar-related or only for kids. But this is a really cool opportunity for people of all ages. It’s something we're trying to work on. Last year all our volunteers were college age. To see it grow into something that's bigger than that, there's just a lot of knowledge to be shared.
Definitely. So what other instruments do you play?
I play piano, which was my first one. I play viola. I was in a steel drum band in high school- I wouldn’t say I actively play those. I play guitar. Ukulele. And singing is definitely an instrument too.
Why do you think you are not currently working at an industrial design job?
Oh man, I think I realized pretty early on through school that I didn't really love it. I picked industrial design. Well, I didn't even really pick it. I thought I was gonna go to school for engineering, so I applied to a lot of colleges for biomedical engineering. I thought making prosthetic gear and stuff like that was kinda close to building things and making artistic things. But I was also good at math, so I thought that made sense. That's what my mom really wanted for me. She's an engineer, and she's also an immigrant, so she definitely has that idea of what will make you successful in the United States. That’s why she moved here- to have the best life, etc. etc. I thought I was going to do engineering and then at the last minute I freaked out and I was like, ‘I wanna do illustration. I wanna do fine art’. And she was like ‘mmmm what if we found something that was in between?’ And so industrial design is definitely that in between. But then as I started going through school, I was like, ‘I don't know if I like this’, I was never into 3D modeling, I wasn't excited about designing things, which is the whole thing about industrial design. I was kind of like, ‘well crap’. But I guess I'll stick it out cause DAAP doesn’t let you get out easy, or change your major easy. I’d have to add a whole extra year of school. So I just stuck with it. And I did a lot of research-oriented co-ops because I really enjoyed that. I love talking to people, figuring stuff out. And then when I graduated, I was still trying to figure it out. Senior year you make the chart of all the things you're good at and find where they intersect. Mine was definitely just doing events or inviting people to stuff, creating communities, being inclusive, and I was like, ‘How do I make that a capstone?’ I kind of did it through a capstone. I was really into speculative design. I think it's super interesting, so I wanted to incorporate that kind of thing. I did these kind of workshops. I did a funky thing for my capstone which was fun. There was a couple of places that I would have wanted to get a job in industrial design. My last internship was at Casper and I really wanted that, but they were only hiring a senior designer. So that’s why I’m not doing it. I like Cincinnati and I wanted to stay. And then, pretty soon after I graduated, Marlo, who's the Executive Director for Girls Rock, reached out to me and was like ‘do you wanna help with this?’ And I said yes. I think Cincinnati is cool for starting something new. It's a small-ish city where you can make an impact and do something that is important. And then also my boyfriend Carson got a full-time job here and we were like, ‘maybe we should just stay for a while’. I’m from a small town, so Cincinnati still feels fun and good to me. I've never been itching too hard to move to New York or anything. I did co-op in big cities and it was fun and I would totally live there, but I'm not dying to move there.
Not a necessity for you.
I THINK THE MIDWEST HAS THIS REALLY IMPORTANT RESILIENCE THAT BIG COASTAL CITIES DON'T HAVE AND THAT INTRIGUES ME. I ALSO THINK THAT MIDWEST AND RUSTBELT CITIES ARE LEFT BEHIND. A LOT OF THE TIME, PEOPLE ARE SO EAGER TO MOVE SOMEWHERE ELSE INSTEAD OF STAYING AND FIXING THE PROBLEMS THAT ARE HERE WHERE THEY'RE FROM. AND I THINK A LOT OF PEOPLE WANNA MOVE BECAUSE THEY THINK IT'LL FIX THEIR PROBLEMS. BUT I THINK YOU GOTTA FIND SOMETHING FOR YOURSELF THAT YOU CARE ABOUT. THE PLACE ISN'T THE PROBLEM.
You have to find something that you care about wherever you are, and if you're trying to move somewhere else to find it, obviously it's situational, but I think creating a life that you love in a place is something people do all the time. It's definitely a privilege to be able to just up and go somewhere else.
That's very true. What are some issues in Cincinnati you feel like you could address?
Something that we were definitely trying to do with Girls Rock is the racial segregation in the city and also the class divide. That's why we host our camp in Price Hill, because it's the most diverse in many terms. Socio-economically, racially, culturally, it's one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Cincinnati. Our plan is to keep it there because we can have campers from other neighborhoods come in as well. It's just so cool to keep there. There's also a lot of music and art and created creative stuff that's happening there that we can be involved with. Cincinnati is so diverse. But it's so separate. And also in public schools, there's not a lot of music and art. I can't speak for music, but through doing Design In Mind, I know that a lot of the art programs have one teacher put between multiple schools that maybe every other week they have an art class. I think that seeing ‘STEAM’ including art in science is really important because it is creative problem solving. Learning to express yourself in those ways is really important. We've been helped out a lot by MYCincinnati in Price Hill. It’s a free after school orchestra program. And it's just really good to be in the same community as they are.
And you do your own music here in Cincinnati?
Yeah. I wanna be a part of creating a music community here that I wanna be a part of. It did feel tough getting into the music scene, as a 21-year-old girl. Some weird stuff definitely happened.
Do you wanna speak to that a little bit?
I was lucky in that John, my drummer, has been in the music scene for a while in multiple different bands, so he could say like, ‘hey they're definitely trying to take advantage of you if we agree to do this, this, or this’. I was really lucky to have that, and I have met a lot of younger bands. I shared a practice space with Hissop, who are recent college grads. They just don't know a lot of the stuff cause they're new to the scene. It’s just stuff like: are you gonna get paid, or are people getting paid and you're not being told. It's all very DIY in the fact that there's not contracts being done up in a lot of the places that people would play- bars, things like that. I've met up with a couple of different performers who are younger than me just to give advice. It's really great that they've asked me for help. They're like ‘we know that you've gone on tour, how did you do that? What are some tips about making sure you're getting paid and figuring stuff out?’, cause a lot of it is expected or it's a social thing that is not really taught. It’s just a social understanding, but I think it's better to talk about that stuff and teach it to each other because if it's a practice that it isn't very great, just change it. Just say, ‘no, I think we should all get paid’. I also wanna see more women and non-binary and trans people performing. When I'm booking a show, I'm definitely trying to look to prioritize those people first. Also I just wanna play with those people more. It's insane, but the majority of these bands are all dudes... Or all white people. Right when I was first starting to play in a band, there's a group of people who I really looked up to and thought we were super cool who were making music around this time. Facebook was on its way out and there used to be this big Facebook group, called Cincinnati DIY. Were you a part of that?
I've talked to a lot of people about this.
It’s so interesting how something like that can really change the whole community’s feeling.
Yeah, tell us what happened with that.
Basically there used to be a really cool page where different artists would make a calendar for the month with all the shows that were happening around town. You could submit and they would get on that calendar, and then people would print it off. I think this guy Robert was leading up the charge on it. But it was great. It was a thing that actually brought the community together. You can ask to do the art work for it, so it was all different styles. All this music was on there, people were really pushing for non-bar venues, which I think is an important part of the DIY scene. And then suddenly it just got into this weird situation where every other post was a call-out post. ‘This person sucks’. It was very ‘Me Too’ movement era, and some of that was really good, but then it just turned into a lot of name-calling. A lot of crap. It was great to have a resource to be like ‘these bands are Nazis’. But then it just got really out of hand the way that a lot of internet forums can. So that was happening as I was joining the music community. These bands that I looked up to, there was a band called ‘Blacker’. It was an all POC punk band and it was so cool. There were just all these POC who were doing music with each other, and I thought that was so cool. I was so ready to jump into this and be in this community. Then all this stuff happened were they were getting attacked on social media a lot. The projects disbanded or they moved. A lot of them just moved out of town because existing in this community felt too harsh. In that I don't blame them. I know I just said there's something to be said for staying where you are.
I’M HALF WHITE AND I DEFINITELY LOOK WHITE, SO I MOVE THROUGH THE WORLD IN THAT EASIER WAY. I THINK IT'S ON ME AND PEOPLE LIKE ME TO STAY AND MAKE A PLACE BETTER. BUT IF YOU'RE A PERSON OF COLOR, ESPECIALLY BLACK OR INDIGENOUS, AND YOU WANNA GET THE HECK OUT OF HERE- DO IT. YOU DON'T OWE US ANYTHING. YOUR OWN SAFETY IS MORE IMPORTANT.
So that was happening when I was starting in the music scene. It felt really sad. All these people I was looking up to and I saw myself in, they all left because they couldn't take it. I was like, ‘wait, what the heck does that mean for me now?’ I don't know, I kinda try to keep tabs on them. But I feel like the hip-hop scene in Cincinnati has just taken off in a really cool way. The younger college students who are putting shows on right now are doing a really great job. They're really getting people out for music, they all are supporting each other, stuff like that. Which is just cool to see. But it feels very disconnected from the rest of the scene because everything is 21-plus. I think Girls Rock is proving to be a cool way to try to unite those. This club here at UC called Music For UC, it's just a club that gets together and listen to albums, and sometimes puts on house shows. They reach out to me and they're like, ‘we wanna do a benefit for Girls Rock’ and I'm like, ‘that's perfect, we can combine our forces and get to know each other’.
That is awesome.
Yeah, and there are some really cool venues. Another one is in Price Hall, it's 3117 Warsaw, which Henry Wilson runs. That's one of my favorite spots cause it's just the first floor of his apartment which used to be a funeral home. It’s very cool. And it’s also across the street from MYCincinnati firehouse. Getting some of those college bands to play with some bands that have been around for a while, just introducing those people and being like, ‘hey we're all doing this. We can learn from each other’- that's super important to me.
Yeah, I think one thing that keeps coming up about the Cincy music scene is about how a lot of people who are in alternative lifestyles or who tend to that type of vibe or that type of music, they need a safe place. They aren't the accepted norm. They need somewhere to feel comfortable and to feel like they can be themselves. And sometimes the Cincy music scene can't offer that to them. It's full of abusers, it's full of people who won't give them that space.
Yes! Also, this is just a more personal experience, but when I was starting a band and I was 21, I was dating this guy who had moved here from Athens and he was a ‘music guy’. He was two or three years older than me, and he just did that thing where it was like ‘I'm older, I'm in a band’. I just feel like everyone who's dated some guy in a band has had an experience like this where he was just really degrading and really... And if you asked him, he wouldn't even even say that. He'd be like ‘no, I love music. I played in a band with a girl one time’. He did some stuff to me that I don't wanna talk about, but then I found out that he did it to other women in Athens and that's why he moved. He has since left town. It's just that kind of thing and it's like UGH.
That is a big thing. You said we have to balance out this need for public communication, this need for different ideas, with the Me Too era of people saying, ‘hey, you should be held accountable’. And if you’re going to go off and perform in a room of people they should probably be warned off that you don't do that to them too.
With Girls Rock an issue that we had when we were first starting up is people immediately coming to us and being like, ‘you shouldn't associate with so-and-so because they did this’ and we are inclined to believe anything that we hear, just when it comes to that kind of situation.
Because a lot of people will just message our Instagram very gossipy sounding like ‘I heard so-and-so did this’, and we're definitely working hard to figure out a way to take messages like this and concerns. We wanna hear concerns but we would love to have a process that we're trying to figure out.
Is this is about your volunteers or…
Yeah, anybody that we have involved, and we do take it super seriously. We haven't talked about this very publicly, but it's just an interesting thing that happens behind the scenes. A lot of scene drama immediately starts to get involved. And not even with more serious stuff, but more little things like ‘so-and-so just doesn't like someone else’. Then they think it's okay for them to tell us that they're a bad person. Just because they had a personal situation. It's really strange, and we're trying to figure out how to be like, ‘hey we are a professional, non-profit business here. This isn't time for gossip’. I don't know how to talk about it cause we're still figuring it out. It's just related back to how scene drama goes. Because it is still a group of people. There's always gonna be interpersonal conflict. But it is cool. I think all the language that we use around Girls Rock sets it up. We ask when anyone volunteers and for all of our leadership. Our leadership went through a very intense interview process. We ask a lot of questions. We ask all our volunteers this basic question about... I think the phrasing is ‘we center equity in our work. How do you incorporate racial justice, class, disability, gender, sexuality, equity into your daily life, and how would you do so as a volunteer with us?’ That's a really tough question. And if people take the time to think about it and respond to it, then we know that's someone we wanna have involved. We're applying right now to be a part of the Girls Rock Camp Alliance, which is just an international group of all the different Girls Rock camps. Their application process is super intense. It was just a questionnaire. But the questions are those kind of heavy questions that are like, ‘how are you making sure your work is intersectional?’
Yeah, that definitely makes sense. Is that something that you find difficult also in your personal work as an artist, because I know you do music, but you also do other things.
For me I think the hardest thing with my personal work right now is just balancing making art inside capitalism. I was making earrings for a while and then I was selling them and it felt weird and I didn't like it.
What got weird about it?
I wanted to make things. I loved making things. It does make sense to sell them, but there’s something about trying to sell things that you make that are art- like you make them just cause you want to. Trying to sell them is like monetizing your hobby. It just adds a level of stress to it, and a level of rejection. If someone doesn't purchase your work, it feels personal... It is personal. I don't really know how to describe it. It didn't feel fun anymore, which is why I started it in the first place. I make a lot of art. Like for music, that's art. I do it for fun.
WITH OUR BAND MEMBERS WE'VE ALL REALLY TALKED ABOUT HOW WE'RE NOT TRYING TO MAKE MONEY. WHICH IS WHY WE DO PLAY A LOT OF BARS SUPPORTING TOURING ARTISTS AND STUFF. THE GOAL ISN'T TO MAKE MONEY. WE JUST LIKE MAKING MUSIC. WE'RE LUCKY TO BE ABLE TO FIT THAT INTO OUR SMALL FREE TIME. I DO THINK THAT ARTISTS SHOULD GET PAID FOR THEIR WORK, BUT WE AREN'T EXPECTING IT AT THIS POINT IN OUR CAREER.
Yeah, and just if it's not fun anymore, then we have to re-evaluate. I was in another band before and it stopped being fun. So we were like, ‘How do we talk about this?’
So what kind of personal non-musical art are you into these days?
I've always been into oil painting. I did literally one oil painting in this past couple of months or something like that, but it was big. That's kind of a big commitment hobby to have. I did that Italy trip with Emil and Katherine in the summer of my freshman year and that was so much fun. It's a skill I really glad that I have, so that's a nice thing. I also own that gosh dang loom that you’ve seen before. It's finally together in my apartment. There's one piece that needs to be fixed up a little bit. With working and doing all this other stuff it's my 2020 goal. It's gonna happen. The loom is also a big hobby to take on. I know that it takes hours and hours to even get it set up to start weaving. But I'm excited for that. I do embroidery stuff, but even that gets tied into the band cause I usually just embroider t-shirts to sell as merch for Wavelette. I love drawing and making stuff. Girls Rock is also fun cause I get to do all our marketing and digital graphics and illustrations things like that. I think going through school I realized the kind of stuff I wanted to be making was a little more playful and less serious than I think the school wanted. More naïve.
That's an interesting way to put it. I think that I want to talk about the value of what you're doing or what your work is. Because you're not working at a consultancy right now. What is the value of your work? Is it not the things that DAAP taught you? Because you're adding to your community, obviously. You're adding to people's lives in a really clear way. So why does that matter as much?
Yeah, I think I started to realize that. It’s funny though that this is an interview for DAAP.
DAAP IS USING YOU TO MAKE MONEY AND IT'S TRYING TO PREPARE YOU TO GO TO SOMEONE ELSE SO THAT THEY CAN USE YOU TO ALSO MAKE MONEY. I JUST WASN'T DOWN WITH THAT. I DON'T WANT TO USE MY CREATIVITY IN THAT WAY. I THINK THEY TRY TO SELL ‘OH, CREATING PROJECTS AND DOING RESEARCH MEANS YOU'RE HELPING PEOPLE’. MAYBE AT THE MAYO CLINIC YOU ARE. BUT ARE YOU REALLY DOING THAT ANYWHERE ELSE? IS CREATING THESE PROJECTS ACTUALLY HELPING ANYONE?
I think Cradle To Cradle gets introduced and everyone has a little bit of a crisis. You realize that, at its core, we are making shit that goes in landfills. So we’re all jaded now. Not all of us, but I think the people who care. I've always cared a lot about this dang world that we live on. It’s kind of important to me. I had a memory the other day and I cried about. I don't know who taught me or where I learned to care so much about the environment. Maybe my mom, or PBS or something. But I remember in sixth grade, hand drawing letter paper posters for Earth Day. With color pencil or something. And making my friends hang them on their lockers. And absolutely getting made fun of for it. Man I was like 11. The kids already knew that they should make fun of me for caring about wanting to recycle and things like that. I was like, ‘that's very cute of young me’. But also what a kind of sad memory.
It is kind of sad that people think that caring is lame.
Yes! I felt that way a lot throughout school. Not just college, but high school as well. I think I've been really happy and pleased outside of the education structure to find like-minded people in communities who care also. That's really important. Through school I felt so lame a lot of the time, just feeling passionate about things. No one should have to feel that way. And it also is just what you feel passionate about. If I felt passionate about beveled edges everyone would be like, ‘wow, that's so cool. She’s so dedicated. She's Steve Jobs’. Whatever. But because I felt strongly about student government or fighting injustice on campus that was lame somehow.
What work did you do to fight injustice on campus?
I was in student government. I think when you're in the student government, you realize that it's all kind of a hoax. The student government doesn't have any actual power in the university system. They get together to meet and they make votes on what they can recommend to the board. I don't know what the word is. Then the school basically just says, ‘haha, thank you’. Also the student body president and vice president receive a full tuition and they are paid as if it is a work-study throughout the year.
Yeah they have office hours and stuff.
Yes, it's a big deal. One of my close friends was campaign manager for one of those tickets and the harassment that she received was next level.
About what?
About people not wanting them to win because there's money behind it. Usually someone who's supported by Greek Life wins because those people vote online. I think there's something going on, right? I'm not too into it cause I'm not in school now but I think there's something going on where again. There's only one option, right?
Yes. It's unopposed right now.
Okay. They should not be paid. It's really frustrating. I was also involved a little bit with the Fossil Free Movement here at UC and the way that student government treated that movement was straight up laughing in our faces. And that's another environmental thing that I think is really important. Divesting is one way that can actually make some impact. That's a proven thing. Getting large organizations to divest is using big amounts of money as a guaranteed way to make change. The fact that student government laughed at us and opposed us and wouldn't even support the moment was just really disheartening. Then while I was in school, there was the Irate8. Which is not really a thing anymore just cause those students graduated. The nature of moving through the educational system doesn't lend itself well to any lasting change. I was supporting that kind of thing. I was in school when Sam Dubose happened and there's still not really any justice for him and his family. I was wanting to talk about those things in class and people were like, ‘Anissa you're making everyone uncomfortable. We shouldn't talk about that’.
Really?
Yeah. And I felt... I had a lot of feelings in school. But I feel like I have a support system now.
That's good. So do you do any type of activism on racial justice now?
Not actively. I'm still trying to balance where I'm spread out. I definitely am feeling very motivated around class justice right now, which I think those things are tied together. But I think that since working in service and retail, and things like that, for close to two years after graduating, that's opened my eyes a lot to a lot of class issues. I think that is something that I'm definitely going to be involved in. There's an organization called Bitchy Baristas that I have been talking with and I was wondering what their goal was at first. But getting to know the people involved, their eventual plan is unionization and I'm gonna be involved in that when that happens.
That's really interesting. It's a primary season.
Yes, it is. Yesterday Carson and I spent the day talking to our respective parents about voting and who they should vote for.
How did that go?
Good I think. My mom is a permanent resident, so she cannot vote. She is an immigrant and that's always been a big part of my life and really informed my politics. Obviously. My dad- I was always kinda unsure what the deal was. He's, I guess the best word for it is… actually I don't know what the best word for it is. I always thought it was libertarian, but I got really upset and was talking about it over text yesterday just posing some questions and thoughts and sending some articles to be like, ‘hey, I hope you consider this when you go vote’. And then he was like, ‘I think you may have some misconceptions about what I believe’. And then I was like, ‘wait, maybe my dad and I believe more of the same stuff that I thought we did’. He's just very like, ‘I don't trust the government’, and he's like, ‘I know that all politicians are evil, so I'm not gonna put my faith in the system at all’, and I'm like, ‘yes, but I do think that you should go vote for someone who you think is gonna bring the closest amount of change to what we wanna see’. But I agree with him in that I think that our system is not really working. And I think that organizing in your community is the most effective way to make change. You should still vote, but you should also get out there and do stuff.
Here's a question I always wanna ask. So you do a lot of community activism. What would you define as your community? Is it a geographic location, is it a set of shared beliefs or shared hobbies? What do you think it is?
For me, it's more around values. I grew up in Findlay, Ohio. It's a stereotypically Midwestern small town. Really white. I knew one other family in high school that was Muslim. I knew no one else who was half Asian. I didn't know that many people of color. For my whole life, you have to really search to find and create the community that you want. It's definitely been around those shared values and I think it's pretty easy to find those kinds of people when you talk about stuff like this. These are conversations I have often.
You don't shy away from them.
No, I think those are important conversations to have. A lot of my closest friends- we share some sort of idea or belief system through common factors.
WHEN I WAS ENTERING COLLEGE, I THOUGHT THAT SOMETHING THAT WOULD IMMEDIATELY CONNECT ME TO SOMEONE IS BEING ASIAN OR BEING HALF WHITE AND HALF SOMETHING ELSE OR BEING MIXED IN ANY CAPACITY. BUT THAT'S TOTALLY NOT THE CASE. I MET PEOPLE WHO ARE HALF ASIAN BUT WERE MORE CONNECTED TO THEIR CATHOLIC UPBRINGING. YOU MIGHT GET LED TO SOMEONE ON THOSE SURFACE VALUE, IDENTITY POLITICS KIND OF THING, BUT THEN YOU HAVE TO GET TO KNOW PEOPLE TO SEE WHAT ACTUALLY THEIR BELIEFS ARE.
Some things are more universal. If your parent is an immigrant, you tend to feel the same way about a lot of things. Stuff like that. It's definitely not geographical. I think about that often. Being not white in the Midwest different than being not white in Seattle. Asian specifically, because being not white in Seattle means a lot of different things. So I, being Asian in the Midwest, have to super seek out those other people. There's one grocery store that everyone goes to. Whereas in the San Francisco, or my family lived in San Jose for short amount of time, there's a huge Asian population there. So there's lots of mixed Asian people. I did a couple of co-ops out in San Francisco. And when you meet someone else who's half-Asian or you see someone else who’s half-Asian your immediate response was like, ‘oh my gosh, you too. I never see anyone’. And they're just like, ‘okay yeah, this is normal whatever’. It's really different.
THE OTHER WEEKEND I WAS WORKING AT THE COFFEE SHOP IN OAKLEY AND TWO FAMILIES IN A ROW CAME IN THAT WERE MIXED ASIAN COUPLES WITH YOUNG KIDS. WHEN THE SECOND ONE CAME IN, I WANTED TO CRY. IT FELT REALLY GOOD. I SAID SOMETHING TO THE FAMILY AND I WAS LIKE, ‘YOU’RE THE SECOND MIXED HALF ASIAN FAMILY THAT'S COME IN AND I AM TOO, AND IT'S REALLY COOL TO SEE THIS HAPPENING MORE AND MORE’. WHICH IS KIND OF A WEIRD THING TO SAY. I DIDN'T SAY IT EXACTLY LIKE THAT, BUT BASICALLY, I WAS LIKE, ‘I’M HALF-ASIAN TOO. THIS IS SO COOL’. AND THE PARENTS WERE SAYING TO THEIR DAUGHTER WHO WAS YOUNG, MAYBE ABOUT FIVE OR SOMETHING, THEY WERE LIKE, ‘YEAH, IT'S COOL, IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT TO SEE PEOPLE WHO LOOK LIKE YOU, ISN'T IT’, TO THEIR KID. THEY WERE LOOKING AT ME AND IT FELT REALLY COOL. THERE'S SO MUCH TO BE SAID ABOUT SEEING PEOPLE WHO LOOK LIKE YOU, OR HAVE THAT SAME WEIRD MIXED-UP EXPERIENCES AS YOU. BECAUSE THEY'RE ALL DIFFERENT BUT YOU CAN BOND WITH EACH OTHER ABOUT HOW IT'S DIFFERENT AND WEIRD IN LOTS OF DIFFERENT WAYS.
My name is Anissa Pulcheon. I use she/her pronouns. I think that you asked me because I am, quote unquote, involved.
Awesome. You’re right! I asked you to be here because you're involved with so many different things, and I also think that you have opinions and you can tell people those opinions.
Yeah, I do think that not everyone can say that about themselves. So yes, I am proud of that. Thank you for noticing and thank you for having me here!
Why don't you tell me a little bit about your activity within your community?
There are some different levels. When I was in college I was really involved with leadership things. Namely DAAP Tribunal. I got involved in that freshman year. My second semester of freshman year they were like, ‘we don't have a president’ and I was like, ‘I'll do it’. Then there was a voting process. I was involved with leadership through all of college. Then I got involved with Design In Mind my last few years as well. I started a band while I was in college- 2016, I guess. I have been doing that ever since. It started out as just me with the drums, and then it grew from there. Last year I helped start Girls Rock Cincinnati, which is a non-profit here in town that is a summer camp for girls and gender variant youth age 12 to 18 to learn how to play a new instrument, form a band, do creative workshops, that kind of thing. What else do I do? I also just love food, and get very into hosting food events at my house and stuff like that. I might also start to get more involved with the Asian American community here in Cincinnati- the people who run Asian food fests and stuff like that. I recently got in contact with them cause they're a bit older than me and have been invited to help do that stuff. It's all schedule pending. And then I'm a barista as well, which I feel like lends itself to community cause it's kind of like the gathering spot. But I'd say my biggest thing is Girls Rock Cincinnati. It's my biggest passion right now for sure.
Are you doing a lot of work with them right now?
Yes. Last year we had four organizers, and then this year we have six- which is really great cause we can get a lot more done. I'm in charge of social media, making all our branding, web stuff, a little bit of merch, events. Right now our camper applications are open and we're about to open our volunteer applications, so we're really pushing the community outreach and marketing. That's a lot of what we're doing right now. It's a lot of work. Now until when camp happens in July is gonna be just be getting busier and busier.
So why do you choose to spend your time on things like this?
I think mainly, most simply it comes out of boredom. I am always doing too much. My brain is just always going. Not doing things just tends to lend itself to depression and stuff like that. I'm always trying to be involved with things. That's for my own personal well-being and also because I feel super passionately about it and I think it's the thing in life that I'm good at- organizing and doing events and things like that. I think it's what I'm good at. So why would I try to do anything else? Specifically for Girls Rock I feel super passionately about it, cause music has always been a really big part of my life.
MY STORY IS THAT I DIDN'T THINK THAT IT WAS POSSIBLE FOR ME TO START A BAND. I WAS LIKE ‘THAT'S NOT REAL, YOU HAVE TO BE REALLY GOOD AT GUITAR AND A BOY TO DO THAT’.
I had this pretty long relationship in college where my partner told me that my music wasn't good enough to be put into the world or put on the internet. Then we broke up. I kinda started to suck it up and then I was in the honors program here at UC. When you're in the honors program, you have to complete a certain amount of ‘experiences’. Usually keep a journal or a blog or something to document and reflect and do other things that you wouldn't do just through your major. One of my final ones was I decided to record as many of my songs as I could and just put them on Bandcamp or put them somewhere in the world. I did that and then I had a little show. I had my friends over to sit on the couch and just listen to me singing my songs, because none of them had ever really heard them. I got a mini grant, I think it was $500, to do something with that.
Where was the grant from?
From UC honors. You can apply for scholarships to go through your experiences if you write an essay. Honors was really great. Erin Alanson I think was my advisor. I think she got promoted since, but she was really good at encouraging me to do something that was unconventional. A lot of honors experiential projects were lab research, or study abroad. She was very down with me doing something that wasn't that.
Well that's really cool that she encouraged you to do something out-of-the-box.
I feel like a lot of my DAAP professors weren't encouraging me to do out-of-the-box things. So it was nice to have one person in my college experience telling me that.
So how did you end up getting the guts to commit to making a whole song and performing those in front of people?
The whole song thing was just already happening. I would write songs and maybe record them on Garage Band, but I never showed them to anyone. It feels so long ago, even though it wasn't. It was maybe four years ago. I think it was like, ‘why am I not just putting it online?’ It’s so easy with Garage Band. It wasn't good. They weren’t great. It was just accepting that they didn't have to be great for me to put them online.
THERE'S LOTS OF DIFFERENT STATISTICS ABOUT HOW MEN WILL APPLY FOR A JOB, EVEN IF THEY'RE ONLY 60% QUALIFIED FOR IT. WOMEN WILL ONLY APPLY TO SOMETHING IF THEY ARE 100% QUALIFIED FOR IT. JUST HAVING THE CONFIDENCE THAT A MAN WOULD TO DO THE SAME THING. TO DO SOMETHING SHITTY.
So that was a big thing. That happened when I was 21. The idea behind Girls Rock is that most of us who are involved with it right now have always loved music but never felt like we had that support or confidence to be in a band or learn guitar. I was never encouraged to learn guitar myself. I played classical music in school and outside of school. I think my mom saw guitar as rock and roll and sex and drugs. She was like ‘why would you wanna do that?’ And I was like ‘because music has always been a part of my life and now it's part of the language that I use to express myself’. At Girls Rock all of us kind of agree that it's serving our younger selves to be giving an opportunity to these middle schoolers and high schoolers to do what we wanted to do in a really great safe environment. And Girls Rock is also cool because we're trying to build a multigenerational community. I think a lot of things that you could do around music, especially in the scene, are bar-related or only for kids. But this is a really cool opportunity for people of all ages. It’s something we're trying to work on. Last year all our volunteers were college age. To see it grow into something that's bigger than that, there's just a lot of knowledge to be shared.
Definitely. So what other instruments do you play?
I play piano, which was my first one. I play viola. I was in a steel drum band in high school- I wouldn’t say I actively play those. I play guitar. Ukulele. And singing is definitely an instrument too.
Why do you think you are not currently working at an industrial design job?
Oh man, I think I realized pretty early on through school that I didn't really love it. I picked industrial design. Well, I didn't even really pick it. I thought I was gonna go to school for engineering, so I applied to a lot of colleges for biomedical engineering. I thought making prosthetic gear and stuff like that was kinda close to building things and making artistic things. But I was also good at math, so I thought that made sense. That's what my mom really wanted for me. She's an engineer, and she's also an immigrant, so she definitely has that idea of what will make you successful in the United States. That’s why she moved here- to have the best life, etc. etc. I thought I was going to do engineering and then at the last minute I freaked out and I was like, ‘I wanna do illustration. I wanna do fine art’. And she was like ‘mmmm what if we found something that was in between?’ And so industrial design is definitely that in between. But then as I started going through school, I was like, ‘I don't know if I like this’, I was never into 3D modeling, I wasn't excited about designing things, which is the whole thing about industrial design. I was kind of like, ‘well crap’. But I guess I'll stick it out cause DAAP doesn’t let you get out easy, or change your major easy. I’d have to add a whole extra year of school. So I just stuck with it. And I did a lot of research-oriented co-ops because I really enjoyed that. I love talking to people, figuring stuff out. And then when I graduated, I was still trying to figure it out. Senior year you make the chart of all the things you're good at and find where they intersect. Mine was definitely just doing events or inviting people to stuff, creating communities, being inclusive, and I was like, ‘How do I make that a capstone?’ I kind of did it through a capstone. I was really into speculative design. I think it's super interesting, so I wanted to incorporate that kind of thing. I did these kind of workshops. I did a funky thing for my capstone which was fun. There was a couple of places that I would have wanted to get a job in industrial design. My last internship was at Casper and I really wanted that, but they were only hiring a senior designer. So that’s why I’m not doing it. I like Cincinnati and I wanted to stay. And then, pretty soon after I graduated, Marlo, who's the Executive Director for Girls Rock, reached out to me and was like ‘do you wanna help with this?’ And I said yes. I think Cincinnati is cool for starting something new. It's a small-ish city where you can make an impact and do something that is important. And then also my boyfriend Carson got a full-time job here and we were like, ‘maybe we should just stay for a while’. I’m from a small town, so Cincinnati still feels fun and good to me. I've never been itching too hard to move to New York or anything. I did co-op in big cities and it was fun and I would totally live there, but I'm not dying to move there.
Not a necessity for you.
I THINK THE MIDWEST HAS THIS REALLY IMPORTANT RESILIENCE THAT BIG COASTAL CITIES DON'T HAVE AND THAT INTRIGUES ME. I ALSO THINK THAT MIDWEST AND RUSTBELT CITIES ARE LEFT BEHIND. A LOT OF THE TIME, PEOPLE ARE SO EAGER TO MOVE SOMEWHERE ELSE INSTEAD OF STAYING AND FIXING THE PROBLEMS THAT ARE HERE WHERE THEY'RE FROM. AND I THINK A LOT OF PEOPLE WANNA MOVE BECAUSE THEY THINK IT'LL FIX THEIR PROBLEMS. BUT I THINK YOU GOTTA FIND SOMETHING FOR YOURSELF THAT YOU CARE ABOUT. THE PLACE ISN'T THE PROBLEM.
You have to find something that you care about wherever you are, and if you're trying to move somewhere else to find it, obviously it's situational, but I think creating a life that you love in a place is something people do all the time. It's definitely a privilege to be able to just up and go somewhere else.
That's very true. What are some issues in Cincinnati you feel like you could address?
Something that we were definitely trying to do with Girls Rock is the racial segregation in the city and also the class divide. That's why we host our camp in Price Hill, because it's the most diverse in many terms. Socio-economically, racially, culturally, it's one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Cincinnati. Our plan is to keep it there because we can have campers from other neighborhoods come in as well. It's just so cool to keep there. There's also a lot of music and art and created creative stuff that's happening there that we can be involved with. Cincinnati is so diverse. But it's so separate. And also in public schools, there's not a lot of music and art. I can't speak for music, but through doing Design In Mind, I know that a lot of the art programs have one teacher put between multiple schools that maybe every other week they have an art class. I think that seeing ‘STEAM’ including art in science is really important because it is creative problem solving. Learning to express yourself in those ways is really important. We've been helped out a lot by MYCincinnati in Price Hill. It’s a free after school orchestra program. And it's just really good to be in the same community as they are.
And you do your own music here in Cincinnati?
Yeah. I wanna be a part of creating a music community here that I wanna be a part of. It did feel tough getting into the music scene, as a 21-year-old girl. Some weird stuff definitely happened.
Do you wanna speak to that a little bit?
I was lucky in that John, my drummer, has been in the music scene for a while in multiple different bands, so he could say like, ‘hey they're definitely trying to take advantage of you if we agree to do this, this, or this’. I was really lucky to have that, and I have met a lot of younger bands. I shared a practice space with Hissop, who are recent college grads. They just don't know a lot of the stuff cause they're new to the scene. It’s just stuff like: are you gonna get paid, or are people getting paid and you're not being told. It's all very DIY in the fact that there's not contracts being done up in a lot of the places that people would play- bars, things like that. I've met up with a couple of different performers who are younger than me just to give advice. It's really great that they've asked me for help. They're like ‘we know that you've gone on tour, how did you do that? What are some tips about making sure you're getting paid and figuring stuff out?’, cause a lot of it is expected or it's a social thing that is not really taught. It’s just a social understanding, but I think it's better to talk about that stuff and teach it to each other because if it's a practice that it isn't very great, just change it. Just say, ‘no, I think we should all get paid’. I also wanna see more women and non-binary and trans people performing. When I'm booking a show, I'm definitely trying to look to prioritize those people first. Also I just wanna play with those people more. It's insane, but the majority of these bands are all dudes... Or all white people. Right when I was first starting to play in a band, there's a group of people who I really looked up to and thought we were super cool who were making music around this time. Facebook was on its way out and there used to be this big Facebook group, called Cincinnati DIY. Were you a part of that?
I've talked to a lot of people about this.
It’s so interesting how something like that can really change the whole community’s feeling.
Yeah, tell us what happened with that.
Basically there used to be a really cool page where different artists would make a calendar for the month with all the shows that were happening around town. You could submit and they would get on that calendar, and then people would print it off. I think this guy Robert was leading up the charge on it. But it was great. It was a thing that actually brought the community together. You can ask to do the art work for it, so it was all different styles. All this music was on there, people were really pushing for non-bar venues, which I think is an important part of the DIY scene. And then suddenly it just got into this weird situation where every other post was a call-out post. ‘This person sucks’. It was very ‘Me Too’ movement era, and some of that was really good, but then it just turned into a lot of name-calling. A lot of crap. It was great to have a resource to be like ‘these bands are Nazis’. But then it just got really out of hand the way that a lot of internet forums can. So that was happening as I was joining the music community. These bands that I looked up to, there was a band called ‘Blacker’. It was an all POC punk band and it was so cool. There were just all these POC who were doing music with each other, and I thought that was so cool. I was so ready to jump into this and be in this community. Then all this stuff happened were they were getting attacked on social media a lot. The projects disbanded or they moved. A lot of them just moved out of town because existing in this community felt too harsh. In that I don't blame them. I know I just said there's something to be said for staying where you are.
I’M HALF WHITE AND I DEFINITELY LOOK WHITE, SO I MOVE THROUGH THE WORLD IN THAT EASIER WAY. I THINK IT'S ON ME AND PEOPLE LIKE ME TO STAY AND MAKE A PLACE BETTER. BUT IF YOU'RE A PERSON OF COLOR, ESPECIALLY BLACK OR INDIGENOUS, AND YOU WANNA GET THE HECK OUT OF HERE- DO IT. YOU DON'T OWE US ANYTHING. YOUR OWN SAFETY IS MORE IMPORTANT.
So that was happening when I was starting in the music scene. It felt really sad. All these people I was looking up to and I saw myself in, they all left because they couldn't take it. I was like, ‘wait, what the heck does that mean for me now?’ I don't know, I kinda try to keep tabs on them. But I feel like the hip-hop scene in Cincinnati has just taken off in a really cool way. The younger college students who are putting shows on right now are doing a really great job. They're really getting people out for music, they all are supporting each other, stuff like that. Which is just cool to see. But it feels very disconnected from the rest of the scene because everything is 21-plus. I think Girls Rock is proving to be a cool way to try to unite those. This club here at UC called Music For UC, it's just a club that gets together and listen to albums, and sometimes puts on house shows. They reach out to me and they're like, ‘we wanna do a benefit for Girls Rock’ and I'm like, ‘that's perfect, we can combine our forces and get to know each other’.
That is awesome.
Yeah, and there are some really cool venues. Another one is in Price Hall, it's 3117 Warsaw, which Henry Wilson runs. That's one of my favorite spots cause it's just the first floor of his apartment which used to be a funeral home. It’s very cool. And it’s also across the street from MYCincinnati firehouse. Getting some of those college bands to play with some bands that have been around for a while, just introducing those people and being like, ‘hey we're all doing this. We can learn from each other’- that's super important to me.
Yeah, I think one thing that keeps coming up about the Cincy music scene is about how a lot of people who are in alternative lifestyles or who tend to that type of vibe or that type of music, they need a safe place. They aren't the accepted norm. They need somewhere to feel comfortable and to feel like they can be themselves. And sometimes the Cincy music scene can't offer that to them. It's full of abusers, it's full of people who won't give them that space.
Yes! Also, this is just a more personal experience, but when I was starting a band and I was 21, I was dating this guy who had moved here from Athens and he was a ‘music guy’. He was two or three years older than me, and he just did that thing where it was like ‘I'm older, I'm in a band’. I just feel like everyone who's dated some guy in a band has had an experience like this where he was just really degrading and really... And if you asked him, he wouldn't even even say that. He'd be like ‘no, I love music. I played in a band with a girl one time’. He did some stuff to me that I don't wanna talk about, but then I found out that he did it to other women in Athens and that's why he moved. He has since left town. It's just that kind of thing and it's like UGH.
That is a big thing. You said we have to balance out this need for public communication, this need for different ideas, with the Me Too era of people saying, ‘hey, you should be held accountable’. And if you’re going to go off and perform in a room of people they should probably be warned off that you don't do that to them too.
With Girls Rock an issue that we had when we were first starting up is people immediately coming to us and being like, ‘you shouldn't associate with so-and-so because they did this’ and we are inclined to believe anything that we hear, just when it comes to that kind of situation.
WE ALSO HAVE TALKED A LOT AND WE REALLY BELIEVE IN ‘CALL-IN’ CULTURE INSTEAD OF CALL-OUT CULTURE. WHETHER SOMETHING WAS A SYSTEM OR A PATTERN THAT'S GONNA AFFECT MORE PEOPLE OR IF IT WAS… BASICALLY, HOW CAN WE HELP OUR COMMUNITY HEAL BY HELPING THIS PERSON. OR HOW DO WE DEAL WITH THESE KINDS OF INSTANCES, BECAUSE ALSO GIRLS ROCK CINCINNATI IS NOT ABOUT THE SCENE. IT'S ABOUT WHAT THE SCENE CAN BECOME. IT'S ABOUT OUR YOUNGER GENERATION AND WE STILL DEAL WITH TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO RESPOND TO THINGS LIKE THIS.
Because a lot of people will just message our Instagram very gossipy sounding like ‘I heard so-and-so did this’, and we're definitely working hard to figure out a way to take messages like this and concerns. We wanna hear concerns but we would love to have a process that we're trying to figure out.
Is this is about your volunteers or…
Yeah, anybody that we have involved, and we do take it super seriously. We haven't talked about this very publicly, but it's just an interesting thing that happens behind the scenes. A lot of scene drama immediately starts to get involved. And not even with more serious stuff, but more little things like ‘so-and-so just doesn't like someone else’. Then they think it's okay for them to tell us that they're a bad person. Just because they had a personal situation. It's really strange, and we're trying to figure out how to be like, ‘hey we are a professional, non-profit business here. This isn't time for gossip’. I don't know how to talk about it cause we're still figuring it out. It's just related back to how scene drama goes. Because it is still a group of people. There's always gonna be interpersonal conflict. But it is cool. I think all the language that we use around Girls Rock sets it up. We ask when anyone volunteers and for all of our leadership. Our leadership went through a very intense interview process. We ask a lot of questions. We ask all our volunteers this basic question about... I think the phrasing is ‘we center equity in our work. How do you incorporate racial justice, class, disability, gender, sexuality, equity into your daily life, and how would you do so as a volunteer with us?’ That's a really tough question. And if people take the time to think about it and respond to it, then we know that's someone we wanna have involved. We're applying right now to be a part of the Girls Rock Camp Alliance, which is just an international group of all the different Girls Rock camps. Their application process is super intense. It was just a questionnaire. But the questions are those kind of heavy questions that are like, ‘how are you making sure your work is intersectional?’
Yeah, that definitely makes sense. Is that something that you find difficult also in your personal work as an artist, because I know you do music, but you also do other things.
For me I think the hardest thing with my personal work right now is just balancing making art inside capitalism. I was making earrings for a while and then I was selling them and it felt weird and I didn't like it.
What got weird about it?
I wanted to make things. I loved making things. It does make sense to sell them, but there’s something about trying to sell things that you make that are art- like you make them just cause you want to. Trying to sell them is like monetizing your hobby. It just adds a level of stress to it, and a level of rejection. If someone doesn't purchase your work, it feels personal... It is personal. I don't really know how to describe it. It didn't feel fun anymore, which is why I started it in the first place. I make a lot of art. Like for music, that's art. I do it for fun.
WITH OUR BAND MEMBERS WE'VE ALL REALLY TALKED ABOUT HOW WE'RE NOT TRYING TO MAKE MONEY. WHICH IS WHY WE DO PLAY A LOT OF BARS SUPPORTING TOURING ARTISTS AND STUFF. THE GOAL ISN'T TO MAKE MONEY. WE JUST LIKE MAKING MUSIC. WE'RE LUCKY TO BE ABLE TO FIT THAT INTO OUR SMALL FREE TIME. I DO THINK THAT ARTISTS SHOULD GET PAID FOR THEIR WORK, BUT WE AREN'T EXPECTING IT AT THIS POINT IN OUR CAREER.
Yeah, and just if it's not fun anymore, then we have to re-evaluate. I was in another band before and it stopped being fun. So we were like, ‘How do we talk about this?’
So what kind of personal non-musical art are you into these days?
I've always been into oil painting. I did literally one oil painting in this past couple of months or something like that, but it was big. That's kind of a big commitment hobby to have. I did that Italy trip with Emil and Katherine in the summer of my freshman year and that was so much fun. It's a skill I really glad that I have, so that's a nice thing. I also own that gosh dang loom that you’ve seen before. It's finally together in my apartment. There's one piece that needs to be fixed up a little bit. With working and doing all this other stuff it's my 2020 goal. It's gonna happen. The loom is also a big hobby to take on. I know that it takes hours and hours to even get it set up to start weaving. But I'm excited for that. I do embroidery stuff, but even that gets tied into the band cause I usually just embroider t-shirts to sell as merch for Wavelette. I love drawing and making stuff. Girls Rock is also fun cause I get to do all our marketing and digital graphics and illustrations things like that. I think going through school I realized the kind of stuff I wanted to be making was a little more playful and less serious than I think the school wanted. More naïve.
That's an interesting way to put it. I think that I want to talk about the value of what you're doing or what your work is. Because you're not working at a consultancy right now. What is the value of your work? Is it not the things that DAAP taught you? Because you're adding to your community, obviously. You're adding to people's lives in a really clear way. So why does that matter as much?
Yeah, I think I started to realize that. It’s funny though that this is an interview for DAAP.
DAAP IS USING YOU TO MAKE MONEY AND IT'S TRYING TO PREPARE YOU TO GO TO SOMEONE ELSE SO THAT THEY CAN USE YOU TO ALSO MAKE MONEY. I JUST WASN'T DOWN WITH THAT. I DON'T WANT TO USE MY CREATIVITY IN THAT WAY. I THINK THEY TRY TO SELL ‘OH, CREATING PROJECTS AND DOING RESEARCH MEANS YOU'RE HELPING PEOPLE’. MAYBE AT THE MAYO CLINIC YOU ARE. BUT ARE YOU REALLY DOING THAT ANYWHERE ELSE? IS CREATING THESE PROJECTS ACTUALLY HELPING ANYONE?
I think Cradle To Cradle gets introduced and everyone has a little bit of a crisis. You realize that, at its core, we are making shit that goes in landfills. So we’re all jaded now. Not all of us, but I think the people who care. I've always cared a lot about this dang world that we live on. It’s kind of important to me. I had a memory the other day and I cried about. I don't know who taught me or where I learned to care so much about the environment. Maybe my mom, or PBS or something. But I remember in sixth grade, hand drawing letter paper posters for Earth Day. With color pencil or something. And making my friends hang them on their lockers. And absolutely getting made fun of for it. Man I was like 11. The kids already knew that they should make fun of me for caring about wanting to recycle and things like that. I was like, ‘that's very cute of young me’. But also what a kind of sad memory.
It is kind of sad that people think that caring is lame.
Yes! I felt that way a lot throughout school. Not just college, but high school as well. I think I've been really happy and pleased outside of the education structure to find like-minded people in communities who care also. That's really important. Through school I felt so lame a lot of the time, just feeling passionate about things. No one should have to feel that way. And it also is just what you feel passionate about. If I felt passionate about beveled edges everyone would be like, ‘wow, that's so cool. She’s so dedicated. She's Steve Jobs’. Whatever. But because I felt strongly about student government or fighting injustice on campus that was lame somehow.
What work did you do to fight injustice on campus?
I was in student government. I think when you're in the student government, you realize that it's all kind of a hoax. The student government doesn't have any actual power in the university system. They get together to meet and they make votes on what they can recommend to the board. I don't know what the word is. Then the school basically just says, ‘haha, thank you’. Also the student body president and vice president receive a full tuition and they are paid as if it is a work-study throughout the year.
Yeah they have office hours and stuff.
Yes, it's a big deal. One of my close friends was campaign manager for one of those tickets and the harassment that she received was next level.
About what?
About people not wanting them to win because there's money behind it. Usually someone who's supported by Greek Life wins because those people vote online. I think there's something going on, right? I'm not too into it cause I'm not in school now but I think there's something going on where again. There's only one option, right?
Yes. It's unopposed right now.
Okay. They should not be paid. It's really frustrating. I was also involved a little bit with the Fossil Free Movement here at UC and the way that student government treated that movement was straight up laughing in our faces. And that's another environmental thing that I think is really important. Divesting is one way that can actually make some impact. That's a proven thing. Getting large organizations to divest is using big amounts of money as a guaranteed way to make change. The fact that student government laughed at us and opposed us and wouldn't even support the moment was just really disheartening. Then while I was in school, there was the Irate8. Which is not really a thing anymore just cause those students graduated. The nature of moving through the educational system doesn't lend itself well to any lasting change. I was supporting that kind of thing. I was in school when Sam Dubose happened and there's still not really any justice for him and his family. I was wanting to talk about those things in class and people were like, ‘Anissa you're making everyone uncomfortable. We shouldn't talk about that’.
Really?
Yeah. And I felt... I had a lot of feelings in school. But I feel like I have a support system now.
That's good. So do you do any type of activism on racial justice now?
Not actively. I'm still trying to balance where I'm spread out. I definitely am feeling very motivated around class justice right now, which I think those things are tied together. But I think that since working in service and retail, and things like that, for close to two years after graduating, that's opened my eyes a lot to a lot of class issues. I think that is something that I'm definitely going to be involved in. There's an organization called Bitchy Baristas that I have been talking with and I was wondering what their goal was at first. But getting to know the people involved, their eventual plan is unionization and I'm gonna be involved in that when that happens.
That's really interesting. It's a primary season.
Yes, it is. Yesterday Carson and I spent the day talking to our respective parents about voting and who they should vote for.
How did that go?
Good I think. My mom is a permanent resident, so she cannot vote. She is an immigrant and that's always been a big part of my life and really informed my politics. Obviously. My dad- I was always kinda unsure what the deal was. He's, I guess the best word for it is… actually I don't know what the best word for it is. I always thought it was libertarian, but I got really upset and was talking about it over text yesterday just posing some questions and thoughts and sending some articles to be like, ‘hey, I hope you consider this when you go vote’. And then he was like, ‘I think you may have some misconceptions about what I believe’. And then I was like, ‘wait, maybe my dad and I believe more of the same stuff that I thought we did’. He's just very like, ‘I don't trust the government’, and he's like, ‘I know that all politicians are evil, so I'm not gonna put my faith in the system at all’, and I'm like, ‘yes, but I do think that you should go vote for someone who you think is gonna bring the closest amount of change to what we wanna see’. But I agree with him in that I think that our system is not really working. And I think that organizing in your community is the most effective way to make change. You should still vote, but you should also get out there and do stuff.
Here's a question I always wanna ask. So you do a lot of community activism. What would you define as your community? Is it a geographic location, is it a set of shared beliefs or shared hobbies? What do you think it is?
For me, it's more around values. I grew up in Findlay, Ohio. It's a stereotypically Midwestern small town. Really white. I knew one other family in high school that was Muslim. I knew no one else who was half Asian. I didn't know that many people of color. For my whole life, you have to really search to find and create the community that you want. It's definitely been around those shared values and I think it's pretty easy to find those kinds of people when you talk about stuff like this. These are conversations I have often.
You don't shy away from them.
No, I think those are important conversations to have. A lot of my closest friends- we share some sort of idea or belief system through common factors.
WHEN I WAS ENTERING COLLEGE, I THOUGHT THAT SOMETHING THAT WOULD IMMEDIATELY CONNECT ME TO SOMEONE IS BEING ASIAN OR BEING HALF WHITE AND HALF SOMETHING ELSE OR BEING MIXED IN ANY CAPACITY. BUT THAT'S TOTALLY NOT THE CASE. I MET PEOPLE WHO ARE HALF ASIAN BUT WERE MORE CONNECTED TO THEIR CATHOLIC UPBRINGING. YOU MIGHT GET LED TO SOMEONE ON THOSE SURFACE VALUE, IDENTITY POLITICS KIND OF THING, BUT THEN YOU HAVE TO GET TO KNOW PEOPLE TO SEE WHAT ACTUALLY THEIR BELIEFS ARE.
Some things are more universal. If your parent is an immigrant, you tend to feel the same way about a lot of things. Stuff like that. It's definitely not geographical. I think about that often. Being not white in the Midwest different than being not white in Seattle. Asian specifically, because being not white in Seattle means a lot of different things. So I, being Asian in the Midwest, have to super seek out those other people. There's one grocery store that everyone goes to. Whereas in the San Francisco, or my family lived in San Jose for short amount of time, there's a huge Asian population there. So there's lots of mixed Asian people. I did a couple of co-ops out in San Francisco. And when you meet someone else who's half-Asian or you see someone else who’s half-Asian your immediate response was like, ‘oh my gosh, you too. I never see anyone’. And they're just like, ‘okay yeah, this is normal whatever’. It's really different.