Past Events

Isabella “Isa” Borgeson (she/they) is a queer, mixed race, filipino american poet and community organizer from Oakland. Isa was named a “Best New Poet” of 2018. She has received fellowships from Voices of Our Nation Art Foundation, the Poetry Incubator through Crescendo Literary, and AIR Serenbe as their Spoken Word Artist with a commitment to Community and Collaboration (SWACC!) Fellow. In 2020, Isa was named a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellow. Their poetry is influenced by years of organizing in the aftermath of super typhoon Yolanda. Isa is passionate about using storytelling as a tool for documenting resistance in her communities across the pacific, a homeland from Oakland to Tanauan. isaborgeson.com

Andrew (Drew) Van Va’i is a Samoan and Tokelauan educator from San Francisco, California. He represents the villages of Ofu and Fitiuta in American Samoa, as well as the island Fakaofo in Tokelau. He holds a master’s degree in Ethnic Studies from San Francisco State University where his thesis focused on the experiences of Pacific Islander men in community college.

None of this is possible without community." –Drew

Drew is currently a faculty in the Ethnic Studies Department at Chabot College where he teaches the first course focused on Pacific Islanders, Ethnic Studies 6. When he is not teaching, he is supporting students as an advisor working alongside the Nesians Unite Learning Community at Chabot. He also runs a peer mentoring program called Students Supporting Students at City College of San Francisco.

Beyond the realms of academia, Drew is an established writer who has taught and performed poetry across the world. Much of his work centers on being Pacific Islander and growing up in San Francisco.