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Intercultural Leadership Inst.

@weareili

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A year-long intercultural experience for artists, culture bearers & other arts practitioners.

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Reposting from Martin Luther King Jr. page on FB:

The King Center mourns the loss of labor rights leader and activist, Dolores Huerta. Dolores co-founded the United Farm Workers, coined the anthem of hope “¡Sí, se puede!”, and spent more than seven decades organizing at the intersections of labor, civil rights, gender equality, and immigrant justice. She showed the world that field workers, women, and marginalized communities hold the collective power to demand dignity and win.

Dolores Huerta and our founder, Coretta Scott King, shared an alliance rooted in the intersection of labor rights, racial equality, and women’s leadership. They organized together in Salinas, California, during the 1970 farmworker strikes, and stood shoulder to shoulder in Washington defending antipoverty initiatives.

We extend our deepest condolences and heartfelt prayers to her family, loved ones, and the generations of organizers whose paths were paved by her sacrifice.

#DoloresHuerta #nonviolence #SiSePuede #TheKingCenter by @weareili

A rainbow of colors. A community full of love. Every color tells a story. Every shirt represents a journey. And every smile reminds us of the relationships that make ILI so special.

As alumni, and organizational partners and connections gathered in New Orleans for ILI’s cultural intensive the steps to our next experience became a colorful celebration of connection, belonging, and community.

Different cohorts. Different experiences. One growing movement, rooted in culture, connection, and collective leadership. And yes, the love is real! 💛❤️💚 🤎💙 💜 🧡. by @weareili

The most powerful thing in the room? The people. ✨

These are faces and smiles from ILI’s year 7 Cultural Intensive. Our time together in New Orleans transformed us.

Each person brings their own story, experience, and perspective. Together, they represent the relationships, creativity, and collective wisdom that make intercultural leadership possible.

This is the heart of ILI. The people who make the movement.❤️

#InterculturalLeadership #CulturalLeadership #CollectiveLeadership #CommunityBuilding NewOrleans by @weareili

Luxuriating and Learning in NOLA with My FamILI, Day 4: Raíces & Roots

Our final day @weareili New Orleans Cultural Intensive brought together migration, art, literature, music, culture, storytelling, and my favorite candied yams.

At Ashé Cultural Arts Center, we watched Our Voice Nuestra Voz // Borders, a documentary film highlighting Black and Brown experiences crossing borders. @ourvoicenuestravoz is a nation-building organization anchoring ancestry and building Black and Brown solidarity in New Orleans. This October marks its 10th anniversary. The film deepened our conversations about identity and belonging.

After lunch, we participated in beading and drumming. I was so embarrassed because I couldn't keep the beat! My hands were sore and red, so eventually, I pretended I knew what I was doing. Still, it was exhilarating and had my heart racing.

That evening @ashe_cac, the ILI partners held a brief discussion. Then, Roots Late Night featured @sunnipatterson and her band, followed by an open mic where I read a tribute to my former mentor, @andrewxuanpham. I also connected with Veggie Farmer rep Kai Nguyen, who shared that he grew up without knowing Vietnamese writers. He hadn't heard of Pham but was interested in reading his literature.

We also received copies of @alternateroots anthology, and the evening ended with a lively brass band!

As a writer, I left thinking about whose stories we inherit, preserve, and carry forward.

Although I've visited NOLA nearly a dozen times, our four days deepened my understanding of intercultural leadership and allowed me to experience the community through a beautiful new lens.

I'm grateful to ILI for inviting me back as a stakeholder, our wonderful hosts, @refinedhoodlum and @damia__x, Alternate ROOTS, the ILI team, partners, fellows, and alumni for the knowledge, fellowship, sweet memories, and GOOD food!

Afterward, I told a friend about ILI. Hearing what we'd experienced, she said it sounded like the perfect organization and program. I told her it is. I don't know any other programs like it. by @weareili

One beat. Many hands. A shared rhythm. 🥁

At ILI’s Cultural Intensive in New Orleans, we experienced how listening, learning, and moving in sync can bring us into deeper connection.

Just like collective drumming, *collective leadership requires us to listen, respond, and work toward a shared purpose.*

When we find our rhythm together, we discover what’s possible together.

#InterculturalLeadership #CollectiveLeadership #CulturalLeadership #CommunityBuilding #NewOrleans by @weareili

Luxuriating and Learning in NOLA with My FamILI, Day 3: Rejoicing & Regeneration

Day 3 @weareili began with my first Second Line!

Although I’d seen photos and videos, I never understood its significance until experiencing one. Rooted in African American culture and Black social aid and pleasure clubs, second lines celebrate life, resilience, and pride through brass bands, dancing, and street processions.

At the Young Men Olympian Second Line in the 10th Ward, someone remarked on how much the Black men were smiling. So much joy, pride, freedom, dancing, food, liquor, and community filled those streets!

Later, in NOLA East, Kai, a former classmate of our host @damia__x, shared nearly 50 years of Vietnamese American history and the community’s resilience through Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill.

We enjoyed lunch at chef Quỳnh Ngô’s Diamond Billiard Hall, including frog legs, which I didn’t touch! It reminded me of a Vietnamese diner near my former Culver City home I never tried. Sometimes we overlook the cultural richness around us.

Next was @veggifarmcoop, on four acres once occupied by FEMA trailers after Katrina. Established after the BP oil spill to create opportunities for fishermen, the farm grows eggplant, okra, green beans, calabash, and hibiscus. All that vegetation had me worried about garden snakes!

What stayed with me was how the Vietnamese community led its own recovery. VEGGI connected land, food, culture, economic sustainability, and collective leadership.

I thought of @altadenacommunitygarden, and the 15 fruit trees we planted in January. I was also surprised to see @nasa’s Michoud Assembly Facility!

NOLA reminded me of my mentor, award-winning Vietnamese American writer @andrewxuanpham (1967–2025), whose family settled in Shreveport after immigrating to the U.S. Exploring NOLA East deepened my appreciation for a culture Andrew introduced me to. I told Kai I’d honor him at Sunday’s open mic.

We ended @ashe_cac with a group photo.

From the Second Line to VEGGI, Day 3 reminded me that even after disasters, communities can rebuild, reclaim their futures, and create joy. by @weareili

You can feel the warmth right through the screen. ⚡️

Day 1 of our ILI Year 7 Cultural Intensive in NOLA started the only way we know how: big smiles, long-awaited hugs, and inspiring introductions.
For this development year’s singular in person event, we brought together a powerful mix of ILI alumni, partner organizations, and FAMILI into one room. The deep connection you see here doesn’t happen by accident, it’s rooted in the connected founding partner beginnings, the alumni foundation and shared commitment that binds us all together.
Special gratitude to our amazing hosts, @damia__x and @refinedhoodlum , for, hosting us, holding space and welcoming us so beautifully! 🎺

#ILI #NOLA #StakeholderIntensive #LeadershipDevelopment #AlumniNetwork by @weareili

Luxuriating and Learning in NOLA with My FamILI, Day 2: Resilience & Resistance

Last week, our second day @weareili took us along historic River Road to Whitney Plantation. Along the way, I enjoyed the beautiful, towering trees draped in Spanish moss. We passed eight former plantations and learned that dozens once lined the Mississippi River. Since my first visit to NOLA in 2013, I had traveled through the region many times but never visited a former plantation.

Opened as a museum in 2014, Whitney centers the experiences of enslaved people rather than plantation owners. We encountered memorials honoring more than 100,000 enslaved people, and I appreciated @refinedhoodlum's reflections on the juxtaposition of the plantation's history and its gift shop.

The grounds were peaceful, quiet, and beautiful in a haunting way. Despite hearing cars and a passing train, the plantation felt isolated. I thought about those who lived, labored, and died there.

One of the most disturbing memorials depicted the severed heads of 63 enslaved people who resisted slavery, commemorating the 1811 German Coast Uprising, the largest organized revolt of over 500 enslaved people in U.S. history. Experiencing this history in person was very different from reading about it.

Before leaving @sunnipatterson blessed us again with her beautiful mind, soul, and voice during a healing moment. As we left, I wondered how many enslaved people might have ended up in the nearby Mississippi River.

Back @ashe_cac, cofounder Carol Bebelle shared the organization's history and experiences during and after Hurricane Katrina.

Although I shouldn't have been, I was surprised by how often Katrina came up throughout the intensive. But as someone from Altadena, where my community continues recovering from the Eaton Fire, I began to understand why. Disasters change communities, but recovery reveals the power of culture, collective memory, and community leadership.

Had it not been for ILI, I probably would never have visited a former plantation. Day 2 gave me much to reflect on and carry home.

Correction to Day 1: We visited the Blue Nile on Saturday evening, following Whitney Plantation, not Friday. by @weareili

Luxuriating and learning in NOLA with my FamILI, Day 1: Roots

A week ago, it was wonderful to reconnect with familiar faces and meet new ones as I returned to New Orleans for a special Intercultural Leadership Institute Stakeholder Cultural Intensive.

During this development year, @weareili brought together 80 partners, alumni, funders, collaborators, fellows, and team members to help imagine the program's future.

Although I've visited NOLA nearly a dozen times, including during its 300th anniversary, I experienced the city through a beautiful new lens with ILI. In four days, I learned more about NOLA than I had on my previous visits.

Our hosts were @damia__x and @refinedhoodlum. We opened at Congo Square with prayer, drums, @sunnipatterson blessing us with her beautiful brains, voice, and soul, grounding us in its history as a gathering place for enslaved and free people of African descent.

From there, we explored Tremé, which I was surprised to learn was first the Morand Plantation and later became a community of free people of color, and Esplanade, where enslaved people were auctioned. We learned about the Community Book Center, the oldest bookstore, Bayou Road and the oldest road in NOLA.

We had lunch @dookychaserestaurant, where I enjoyed Louisiana redfish while learning about founder Leah Chase, her influence on NOLA culture, and the restaurant's place in Black history as the last business open that had been on the Green Book list.

We also visited Nanih Bvlbancha, a community project celebrating Indigenous heritage and environmental stewardship, before gathering @ashe_cac for collective reflection, where I purchased the anthology Hurricanes Katrina and Rita at 20, and later for our FamILI dinner.

We ended the evening with performances @bluenilenola, which reminded me of the House of Blues.

Our first day had me thinking deeply about roots, land, food, history, and the people who preserve and carry culture forward.

This is what I appreciate about ILI. We talk about culture, community, and leadership, and we enter communities, listen, learn, build relationships, and experience them together.

And this was only Day 1. by @weareili

One voice called. A whole community answered. 🥁During ILI’s Year 7 Stakeholder Cultural Intensive in New Orleans, we danced, drummed, and made masks, then came together in song.

Through the call and response we practiced listening closely, making space for each voice , and answering together. We created together, and built belonging through participation. ✨

#interculturalleadership #thisiswhatleadershiplookslike #weareili #neworleans # by @weareili

Creating is medicine. Songs are medicine. Fill your cup with things that make you Happy. Got to bead, create and sing songs. All 🌈 aloha! @weareili @liz_takamori @ladigurl @the_real_kanoe @madame.x.hawaii by @weareili

🎺Second Line is an experience. ❤️Community, love and support for one another. First line is the community orgs who come together to celebrate. Second Line is the community, neighbors, visitors who all join in the celebration of one another. The history started with Social Aid and Pleasure clubs who provide mutual aid and financial help for those who were sick or dying. The vibe and community spirit was alive and well to all who attend. @weareili @liz_takamori @ladigurl @the_real_kanoe @madame.x.hawaii by @weareili