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Xigga what? Xigga who? Xigga YOU.

Xigga Stay Woke. Knock knock. Hello?! Learn more about the afrophilocosmology of Xigga and why we chose to make a song about it on our Colored Girls Hustle Hard Mixtape.

This week's Off the Mic featured video is "Sick on dem Waves." Learn more about how Future, trap music, Black girl hair herstories, humor and water metaphors informed our creative process for this song.

Click here to watch more “Off the Mic” videos.

We’ve been on an epic journey to complete the Colored Girls Hustle Hard Mixtape and we’re ready to celebrate its release. Join us! Brooklyn. Detroit. D.C. more details on our website: www.ColoredGirlsHustle.com

“On Her Hustle” is a series of interviews with women of color artists, entrepreneurs, healers and activists who hustle hard for our communities. Colored Girls Hustle uses this series to amplify the work, talent, and passions of other women and girls of color. Click here to read more about our series and to nominate someone to be interviewed.

This month we’re featuring Aiesha Turman, a scholar, mother, and the Executive Director of the Black Girl Project. Read her full interview below to learn more about how she hustles hard for Black women and girls.

Colored Girls Hustle: Tell us about the “Black Girl Project.” How and why did you create the organization? What is the Black Girl Project up to? How does your identity as a Black woman shape your work?

Aiesha Turman: I was an educator, then coordinator of a high school cultural arts and academic internship program in Brooklyn and I found the young women in the program were coming to me with their issues. I had let it be known that I was a soft place to land and that I would do my best to assist them whether it was pointing them in the direction of resources, or physically showing up somewhere. What grabbed my attention was the fact that so many of them were telling me the same things that my friends and I had gone through in high school and college. There hadn’t really been any advancement in the arena of allowing them the room to speak out, or go seek intervention for their issues. The adage “don’t put our business in the streets” came up a lot during conversations. This inspired me to first make the documentary, The Black Girl Project. It was my goal (and still is) to spark intergenerational conversation across ethnicities, sexual orientation, and socio-economic status. A lot of our young women and girls feel as though they are traversing a path on their own, living in a vacuum; but they aren’t and it’s important to hear their stories. I created the organization to help facilitate outreach for the film, but it has grown to take on a life of its own. As a Black woman, who was once a Black girl, all of who I was, am, and am growing to be shapes the work that I do. Our young folks need to be equipped emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually in order to become the self-actualized people they deserve to be. I hope that BGP can be of service in that capacity.

Colored Girls Hustle: What does the word “hustle” mean to you and how does it apply to your daily life?

Aiesha Turman: To hustle means to get it done, get on your purpose, and do your work. I think a lot of folks make “hustle” out to be synonymous with having every iron in the fire and doing whatever it is to get money, and it can be that for those who choose. But for me, it’s about being on purpose, showing up, and following up. Before you can truly hustle you have to know yourself and be comfortable being vulnerable and transparent. Hustling is about love – for yourself and your work.

Colored Girls Hustle: What are three words that you would use to describe yourself?

Aiesha Turman: Fiery, loving, playful.

Colored Girls Hustle: You identify as a cultural producer. What does that mean and how do you see the role of cultural production in movement building work?

Aiesha Turman: Basically, a cultural producer is a creative artist and thinker who can push an idea from inception to manifestation of a completed project. I’ve been able to do this with the BGP film, organization, as well as other youth-centered projects I have completed. In terms of movement building work, particularly with young people, collaborative efforts are really important and within collaboration, there needs to be a plan that allows each organization/group to benefit in some way. A cultural producer helps to shape what that is and what that it can mean.

Colored Girls Hustle: As a cultural producer, you work a lot with storytelling. What advice would you give to girls or women who don't feel comfortable sharing their stories?

Aiesha Turman: There are always parts of stories that people are uncomfortable sharing, so while they may not be ready to lay it all out on the table, a little snippet is fine. I do believe that discomfort is a good thing in situations like this, because it begins the process of people stretching themselves and going beyond who they thought they were. This is part of the reason why I am as transparent as I am; it shows people that you can change your story at any moment. People tend not to believe me when I tell them that I dropped out of college twice, or that I was sexually assaulted at 18, because the picture they have in their head of someone who has had those experiences does not look like me. As I was able to tell my stories I became free, and the more you press up on your comfort zone, the freer you become. It can take awhile, but that’s OK.

Aiesha filming HIV PSA

Colored Girls Hustle: When you created the “Black Girl Project Film” you dedicated it to 15-year-old Shannon Braithwaite. Who was she and how did she inspire your current body of work?

Aiesha Turman: Shannon was a high school student in an academic and cultural arts internship program I spoke about earlier who was viciously murdered by her cousin, a 15 year year-old girl with a very troubled past. Shannon had just turned 16 and had been a participant in the program for a little over a year. She was a wonderful young woman – bright, energetic, and she treated other people with kindness and respect. I’m not only inspired by Shannon, but her cousin Tiana who may never see life outside of prison. I am a big believer in informal mentoring and meeting youth where they are, and if someone had taken the time to listen to Tiana, or get involved in her life without judgment, perhaps both she and Shannon would be living freely today.

Colored Girls Hustle: You are a PhD student at Union Institute and University. What are you studying? What does it mean for you to be a scholar? And how do you plan to use the academy and your scholarship to impact Black girls?

Aiesha Turman: I am enrolled in an interdisciplinary humanities PhD program and am part of the Martin Luther King Specialization where we explore his work and apply it to our own – both within and outside of the academy. Right now, I am in my second term and it’s a lot of theory, but my ultimate goal is to explore motherhood and mothering practices across the African Diaspora and how they mediate cultural trauma and historical grief. There’s been a lot of talk recently about epigenetic memory – how characteristics are passed on from generation to generation – and I am excited about exploring how this transpires in the everyday lived experiences of Black mothers via inherent cultural and learned practices. I absolutely love learning, both formally and informally. To be able to explore my interests, particularly in a program that is rooted in social justice, allows me the ability to do the work at a level that I might not have been able to had I not. It also allows me to disrupt the traditional narrative of scholarship as I bring my real-life work to the academy. In marrying my scholarship and practice to form a practice that is community accountable and self-reflective, I hope to impact Black women and girls in a way that helps navigate paths to personal and communal liberation.

Collage workshop at the Black Girl Sisterhood Summit

Colored Girls Hustle: You have developed a personal philosophy on teaching. Please share! What is at stake in our pedagogical approaches with young women, particularly young women of color?

Aiesha Turman: In short, my teaching philosophy posits that while I may be the person leading a class or workshop, I am not the gatekeeper of knowledge. My teaching environment is built on mutual respect. I really do consider myself as a guide helping whatever group I am working with (and I have worked with every age from kindergarteners through adults in both formal and informal settings) create and understand connections between themselves and the world around them. In terms of our pedagogical approaches, particularly within formal learning communities, we are still having students bank information and regurgitate it. I find that it’s vitally important to have learners as producers of knowledge. My training in education has come through museums and is inquiry based; we ask lots of questions. I find that this works wonders at any age. It fosters the ability to think critically and analytically, and for young women this is vitally important because in understanding the world around them, they come to better understand themselves. And in understanding themselves, they tend to have more agency, focus, and direction in their lives.

Black Girl Project Sisterhood Summit Participants

Colored Girls Hustle: You are a director many projects, a student and you also home school your daughter. What motivates you to take all of it on? How are you exercising self-care in the process?

Aiesha Turman: I no longer homeschool my daughter, but she’s very active and has special needs, so I’m still pretty busy with her. I also have a great support system that includes her father and our parents. In terms of motivation, it would have to be my daughter. She inspires me daily as she is faced with challenges that I’ve never had and manages to rise to the occasion most often with a smile on her face. I want to leave the world a better place for her and her friends, and subsequent generations, or at least leave some tools behind to help create the beloved community that Dr. King wrote and spoke of. As for self-care, I have several practices, which include meditation, journaling, spending time alone/with my partner, treating myself, and unplugging/not making myself so accessible. It’s vitally important that we are able to recharge so that we can continue to hustle. 

We're in the home stretch of our fundraising campaign! We're raising $10k to complete the Colored Girls Hustle Hard Mixtape and we need to raise this money by December 13th.

To encourage your generosity, we're posting videos, interviews, gifs, and quotes from the folks who inspire our mixtape. Everyday until the end of our fundraising campaign, we're sharing our inspirations with you.

Nina Simone. Queen Latifah. Dead Prez. Saul Williams. Missy Elliot. Janelle Monae. MIA. and so much more. Check it: http://coloredgirlshustle.tumblr.com/tagged/mixtape-inspirations

“On Her Hustle” is a monthly series of interviews with women of color artists, entrepreneurs, healers and activists who hustle hard for our communities. Colored Girls Hustle uses this series to amplify the work, talent, and passions of other women and girls of color. Click here to read more about our series and to nominate someone to be interviewed.

This month we’re featuring Sonia Guinansaca, a NY-based artist and activist who is undocumented, unapologetic and unafraid. Read her full interview below to learn more about how she hustles hard for undocumented youth and families.

Colored Girls Hustle: Who is Sonia G?! What’s your life’s passion and purpose?

Sonia Guinansaca: Sonia G is a poet, artist, activist, community/youth organizer...it is really hard to single out my passion as one thing. I am many things -- my identity keeps growing and expanding. I think the best way for me to say who I am is by taking it back to my origin: I am the oldest of 3 children. I was born in Ecuador in 1989. I migrated to NY to reunite with my parents who had previously migrated to find work, and support their families. Raised in Harlem, I attended P.S. 161, and went to Frederick Douglass Academy for middle school and high school where I graduated top of my class in 2007. I always knew I was undocumented and I also witnessed my parents’ experiences in the labor force and in society as immigrants. After falling into depression and attempting suicide I realized that my passion and purpose was to reclaim and tell my story, stand up for myself and with my community, and fight for migrant rights.

  Colored Girls Hustle: You’re a Board member of the New York State Youth Leadership Council (NYSYLC). Tell us more about NYSYLC. How did you get involved and what is your role?

Sonia Guinansaca: Since 2007 I decided to start sharing my undocumented story to others. In February 2008 I joined the New York State Youth Leadership Council, the first undocumented youth-led, membership-led, organization that empowers immigrant youth to drop the fear and challenge the broken immigration system through leadership development, organizing, educational advancement, and a safe space for self-expression. As a core member I coordinated the Media and Outreach committee; and coordinated the NY E.N.D. (Education Not Deportation) campaign, which worked on stopping dozens of deportations of undocumented youth and parents. During the 2010 push for the passage of the federal D.R.E.A.M. Act, I participated in a ten-day hunger strike, and in the second recorded civil disobedience action done by undocumented youth. In 2011 I helped launch the Dreaming In Ink creative writing workshops and soon after founded the NYSYLC’s Arts and Expression Program. Currently I serve as a Board Member where I handle the public relations, arts and media initiatives, and advise in many projects and direct actions.

Colored Girls Hustle: NYSYLC does a lot of direct action to have your voices heard. What has been one of the most rewarding/fulfilling actions you’ve participated in, organized and/or witnessed?

Sonia Guinansaca: I have participated in many direct actions ranging from hunger strikes, rallies, civil disobediences, to attempting to infiltrate a detention center in Alabama. I have also organized many of these direct actions. But the most rewarding/fulfilling thing has been organizing the Coming Out of the Shadows rallies for the past 3 years in NY (Union Square Park) for March National Coming Out month. During this time I witness youth and parents coming out undocumented. I witness people dropping fear/shame and being unapologetic about having to migrate and being undocumented. I find this the most revolutionary act: the empowerment that comes from undocumented people reclaiming their story and sharing it.

  Colored Girls Hustle: How do you define your art practice and how does it connect to your activism? How do you envision the role of artists in movement building work?

Sonia Guinansaca: My poetry makes room for dialogue that my activism does not allow me to do. As a person who has burnt out doing organizing I have turned to poetry to heal. Being undocumented, being a woman of color, being queer, surviving in this country--is very traumatic and emotionally draining at times.  My activism has allowed me to feel empowered and to directly work with my community to fight anti-immigration or so called “pro” immigration work that hurts our community. A lot of my activism has been on immigration and education legislation. My activism has revolved heavily on shifting the discourse around immigration so that directly impacted people (undocumented) are at the forefront and at the table of these discussions. My activism has been about organizing other undocumented youth as well as creating and maintaining undocumented youth led spaces.

For many years I saw my poetry as something that is separate from my activism; this notion is reflected on many organizing and activist spaces. Art and artist are not seen as being part of activism or doing activism; the idea of artists is removed from movement work. But that is so incorrect. Art and artists are part of the movement; there is no movement, no social change without artists and creators. It is not ok to think of artist as just flyer/poster-makers or poets that can fill in your 5 minute press conference hole. We are as important as those working on legislation; we are shifting culture, we are creating and not just being reactionary. My poetry is connected to my activism because both are connected in my survival, in my telling my story, in my resistance, and just being.

Colored Girls Hustle: Tell us a bit about your hustle philosophy: What does the word “hustle” mean to you and how does it apply to your life and professional practice?

Sonia Guinansaca: When I think of hustle I think of my parents. My parents have hustled all their lives to provide for me and my siblings. They have worked multiple jobs at a time, and have given to this country (without getting anything back, not even health care).

But this is not where hustle comes in; my parents’ hustling is reflected in their resistance and their strength. My father loves to cook and nothing makes him happier than feeding our family and playing soccer and volleyball. My mother is the most educated person I know, even though she never finished high school. Till this day she takes courses at City College to improve her english and to wants to some day enroll in college. She is also a fierce femme. Both continue to work multiple jobs, they continue to push through this harsh economic times, they have survived in a country that constantly criminalizes them. Their passion has become us: their kids. Their happiness is being with their family. Thus I have applied all of this in my life and professional practice. My professional is my personal; everything I do is about migrant rights. I have multiple ways of earning to sustain myself. Having multiple hustles is part of being undocumented, a woman of color and as an artist. I make sure that what I do is making me happy, and that my passion is reflected in the work I devote myself to.  My hustle is something that I will never be ashamed of. Hustling doesn't mean I am just focusing on making money; it means emotional/political/social/physical maintenance through practices that reflect my values and nourishes my being.

  Colored Girls Hustle: Describe yourself in 3 verbs.

Sonia Guinansaca: connect, encourage, scribble

  Colored Girls Hustle: How is storytelling and self-expression an integral part of your activist practice and philosophy?

Sonia Guinansaca: Storytelling and self-expression have allowed undocumented people to take and own their stories. It has allowed for people to advocate for themselves, to take a step towards healing and feeling empowered. This is part of my activist practice and philosophy where I believe that the best people to advocate for migrant rights are those that are directly impacted. There is no movement without community; there is no community without people believing in their own story, strength and power. Storytelling and self-expression is one of the fundamental tools for social change.

  Colored Girls Hustle: A lot of our movement building practices operate in silos, making it difficult to have an intersectional activist practice; but you’re doing work at NYSYLC to organize at the intersection of queer liberation and immigration rights. Tell us more about the Undocuqueer project. How else are you working to ensure that immigrant rights are recognized as integral part of other movement building work?

Sonia Guinansaca: The immigrant rights movement is majority led by queer women of color. The role of LGBTQ folks in the immigrant rights movement goes unacknowledged, and I am not talking about LGBTQ allies...I am talking about undocumented LGBTQ people and how they have radically always been at the forefront and organizing. A good article that examines this is “How Queer Undocumented Youth Build the Immigrant rights movement” by Prerna La. Prerna has been a very vocal queer undocumented person of color. Many folks across the country have been critical in the creation of Undocuqueer space and dialogue. I am undocuqueer femme woman of color and I am constantly working on exploring that identity where most times my identities are singled out and marginalized as individual issues, silenced or policed. People fail to see how they are interconnected. At the NYSYLC, I would give credit to Luis S. for taking lead on the Undocuqueer project , making it intentional part of our work and movement building.

  Colored Girls Hustle: You recently launched the (Un)documenting curational project. What are you hoping to accomplish and how can people participate and/or support?

Sonia Guinansaca: Undocumenting is a curatorial project that seeks to collect and highlight the body of creative work by undocumented people, and to build community amongst art and culture makers and activists. Undocumenting also aims to engage in dialogue and reflection around matters of agency, identity, creativity, self-expression and intersectionality around the migrant experience and beyond.  Undocumenting is a project started by Kemi Bello and I, and is powered by Culture Strike. We are both undocumented, artists, and women of color. We hope to highlight the fact that undocumented artists and creators have always been creating and telling their stories and resisting in their own ways. We were both at a point where we constantly came across this popular belief that everyone else but undocumented people can be able to tell undocumented stories. This idea of outsourcing stories was uncomfortable. We wanted to highlight the idea that in reality undocumented people are well equipped in telling their own stories and creating while also being intentional that we are not just undocumented stories or the idea that we are limited to an undocumented story. We create and tell stories beyond our undocumented lived experience. This gives room to explore those intersections and multi-layered identities that we all have.

To read more about Undocumenting and what we aim to do visit Undocumenting.com/About. We launched Undocumenting early this June by profiling undocumented artist for the next 30 days. One way to participate/support is by visiting Undocumenting.com reading the latest posts and spreading the word about it.

If you are on Tumblr you can follow Undocumenting.com.

Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Undocumenting

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/undocumenting

  Colored Girls Hustle: What advice would you give to people who are undocumented and feel passionately about radical immigration reform but are afraid to reveal their immigration status?

Sonia Guinansaca: There's this idea that revealing your immigration status can only be done in front of thousands of people. This is untrue. Coming out is a process. Revealing your immigration status comes in different ways: telling your best friend, changing your Facebook status, coming to terms with yourself -- there is no one single way. Reveal and come out in a manner that you decide. For many it takes years, others can do it in front of rallies...which ever way you do it make sure to do it first for yourself. And never feel like your story has to amount to anyone else’s story. Your story is as important and valuable as anyone else.

For those that feel passionately about radical immigration reform I would advise to always be critically analyzing every legislation, organization, tactic, bill, etc. and to know that there is a community of fierce undocumented people that also are thinking the same thing (comprehensive immigration reform legislation sucks and will never be enough) even if it doesn't make the commercial news outlet.

Last tip would be to put self care first, when I came out as undocumented I thought that I had to dive into everything and to multitask like crazy without listening to how tired my body was getting and how drained I was mentally. You come first! Balance your involvement. You are enough. What you contribute is enough.