Tag Archives: Word Up Recirculation

Word Up Recirculation: “The Cycle Ends with Me” book launch

Word Up welcomes Yessenia Lajara to celebrate the launch of “The Cycle Ends with Me: A Guide to Healing Your Inner Child”, which explores themes of healing, motherhood, mental health, and breaking generational cycles. The event will also feature a spoken word performance centered on motherhood, a live musical performance, audience Q&A, and a book signing.

Please register in advance.

ABOUT THE BOOK
Being raised in a culture rich in love, sacrifice, resilience, and community, Yessenia Lajara explores the often-unspoken reality many children of immigrants experience: parents who worked tirelessly to provide physically, yet often lacked the emotional tools to nurture the wounds they themselves carried.

The Cycle Ends With Me blends psychology, trauma-informed research, reflective exercises, and practical healing tools to help readers understand how generational trauma, emotional neglect, and family survival patterns continue to influence self-worth, relationships, boundaries, anxiety, and the way we move through the world. While rooted in the experience of a first-generation daughter, her story speaks to anyone who has ever carried family expectations, questioned their worth, or wondered where their emotional pain truly began.

More than a guide to healing, it is a love letter to first-generation daughters, a conversation many families never had, and a reminder that understanding where your pain began is often the first step toward ending the cycle.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Yessenia Lajara is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Certified EMDR therapist, first-generation Dominican daughter, and author of The Cycle Ends With Me. Growing up between where her family came from and who she was becoming, Yessenia understands that healing is not about having all the answers. It is about having the courage to ask hard questions and create a new path for ourselves and the generations that come after us.

As a first-generation Latina, her work centers emotional healing, self-compassion, and culturally informed mental health support. Through therapy, education, and storytelling, she empowers others to reclaim their voice, embrace vulnerability, and begin the journey toward healing.  Her mission is to help others remember that healing can begin with one brave conversation.

Word Up Recirculation: Uptown Out Presents: Joe Fonda

Uptown Out presents a reading and show with Joe Fonda, a prolific composer, bassist, recording artist, interdisciplinary performer, producer, and educator. He has appeared on over 300 recordings, performed all across North America and Europe, and collaborated with many adventurous musicians, including long associations with Anthony Braxton and Wadada Leo Smith. This event marks the release of his autobiography, My Life in the World of Music.

The book will be available for purchase at the event.

 Please register in advance.

 

Recirculation Word Up: John Washington’s HOW TO CLOSE A CAMP

John Washington’s HOW TO CLOSE A CAMP: DISPATCHES FROM THE FIGHT AGAINST IMMIGRANT DETENTION

Word Up welcomes reporter and award-winning translator John Washington to discuss his new book,”How to Close a Camp: Dispatches from the Fight Against Immigrant Detention”, an urgent polemic and practical guide to dismantling the immigrant detention system.

“An urgent, courageous book…. Please read it, both to witness the vital stories that Washington captures with grace and rigor, and to study the moral blueprint it presents to us all.” -Sarah Stillman

ABOUT THE BOOK
Masked federal agents are kidnapping and killing our neighbors, on the streets and behind the bars of hundreds of detention centers across the country. In How to Close a Camp, award-winning journalist and translator John Washington offers a galvanizing, clear-eyed case for why we must close these camps and how to do it.

In spite of the decades-long growth of immigrant detention, communities have been fighting back against camps–and winning. Washington distills strategies and lessons from successful campaigns to close camps and block or slow the opening of new ones, drawing on conversations with veteran organizers from the movement.  Chipping away at the infrastructure of the camp is the only way to stave off increasing xenophobic and authoritarian violence. It is time to close all the camps and build a world that no longer requires them.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Washington is a journalist covering the border, climate change, democracy, and more. He has written for The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Nation, The Intercept, and other outlets. He is the author of The Case for Open Borders and The Dispossessed: A Story of Asylum at the US-Mexico Border and Beyond. Washington is also a translator of books by Anabel Hernandez, Sandra Rodriquez Nieto, and others. His most recent translations include The Hollywood Kid by Óscar Martínez and Juan Martínez, and Blood Barrios by Alberto Arce, which won a PEN Translates Award. Both were co-translated along with Daniela Ugaz. He lives in Tucson, AZ.

Word Up Recirculation: Coltrane (100th) Celebration with the Joseph Herbst Big Band

Coltrane Celebration celebrates the life and music of John Coltrane, with this year marking his centennial. The show’s first performance was in 2019 in North Carolina, Coltrane’s home state, while this show is the New York premiere. The show features both arrangements of Coltrane’s music and original music inspired by Coltrane’s life written for 17-piece jazz band by Joseph Herbst.

Spoken word is interwoven throughout the show, bringing to life Coltrane in his own words as the script is all pulled from interviews and writings by Coltrane, allowing those less familiar with Coltrane’s work to be fully immersed as well. While drawing some inspiration from his music directly, the show explores the beliefs, philosophy, and morality of Coltrane as seen in his interviews, resulting in a new experience of Coltrane as a person as well as a musician.

Featured arrangements include “Giant Steps,” “Lonnie’s Lament,” and “After the Rain,” along with compositions inspired by “Equinox,” “Like Sonny,” and “Pursuance.” Join us as we celebrate both a North Carolina and New York icon!

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Hailing from the Carolinas, composer and woodwindist Joseph Herbst uses music as a medium for storytelling. In 2021, he released his debut album, This is Our Environment, bringing together original music, spoken word, and environmental justice. Works in progress include his first big band album, Into the Void of My Dreams, exploring personal change through an original story of a person entering their Dreamworld, and his theatrical show, Ghosts in the Mirror, exploring internalized messages and how we handle them. When not leading his own projects, Joseph works avidly as a copyist with a goal of assisting composers, working with notable figures such as Etienne Charles, Mike Garson, Alan Ferber, Jon Cowherd, Darcy James Argue, and Elio Villafranca. Joseph received the ASCAP Young Jazz Composers Award (2021, 2023, 2024), the ASCAP Johnny Mandel Prize (2023), and the 24th Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize and Manny Album Commission (2023)