Stanley Rodriguez, member of the Kumeyaay Santa Ysabel Band of the Iipay Nation is an educator, language teacher, and tribal singer. He is an advocate for his community’s culture and traditions and serves in a number of advising and teaching roles in the San Diego and Native Kumeyaay communities. He has held the elected position of legislator for the Santa Ysabel Tribe of the Iipay Nation. Stanley is a US Navy veteran, has an MA in Human Behavior worked as a Drug and Alcohol Abuse Counselor and now teaches full time, having just completed his PhD in Higher Education from UCSD.

Stan Rodriguez learned from his Grandmother and other Kumeyaay Elders the methods and culture. Rodriguez sits on the board of a group whose vision is to strengthen language and cultural revitalization, known as the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival. Rodriguez has been teaching Kumeyaay language classes at Kumeyaay Community College on the Sycuan Reservation since 2000. The college is open to Native and non-Native students. Rodriguez does this work in an effort to bring Native American culture to any willing to learn. He has taught workshops at the Northwest Indian Language Institute, and he has been supported by the Alliance for California Traditional Arts in his efforts to learn traditional song cycles, such as Wild Cat, from master artists. Rodriguez regularly performs and provides demonstrations of tribal songs, games, traditional tool making, and structure building.

Shirley Kazuyo Muramoto, teacher and performer on the Japanese koto based in Oakland, CA, grew up listening to and learning how to play from her mother who was also a koto teacher.

Shirley received her Shihan koto teaching credentials with Yushusho (top score) honors, and DaiShihan masters credentials from the Chikushi Kai in Japan. Shirley has performed and taught the koto for over 60 years. Expanding the repertoire of traditional koto music through collaborations, arranging and compositions, Shirley plays the koto in various styles and genres. Shirley researched Japanese traditional performance arts in the World War II American concentration camps. In 2012, her project received a National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites grant to turn her decades-long research into the documentary film, “Hidden Legacy: Japanese Traditional Performance Arts in the World War II Internment Camps (2014).” The film aired on public TV and PBS stations in the U.S. and has been shown at universities around the world.

Shirley was inducted into the Bunka (Japanese cultural arts) Hall of Fame in 2012, and has trained 4 advanced students to expertise through the Apprenticeship Program from The Alliance for California Traditional Arts. As part of the Golden State of Song program administered by Freight and Salvage, Shirley is educating 4th graders in the Berkeley Unified School District about the history and the music of the WWII American internment camps. Since 2023, Shirley teaches a summer program koto class at the Morikami Museum and Gardens in Florida to students youth to adult.

The narrative which came from 120,000+ Japanese and Japanese Americans imprisoned in WWII American concentration camps was that Japanese Americans were not considered “American” even if they were born here. The result was the cutting off cultural practices in order to quickly assimilate into American life. They were ashamed that people did not trust them just because they were of Japanese heritage. Because of this, very few of us cultural practitioners of Japanese arts are left. It’s imperative that traditional artists strive to keep the arts alive in our communities. It’s part of our identity, to understand who we are.

Roy Hirabayashi, co-founder of San Jose Taiko (SJT) in 1973, recently celebrated 50 years of composing and playing taiko and the shinobue (Japanese drum and bamboo flute). For years of community-building through SJT, he and his wife, PJ, were awarded the 2011 National Endowment of the Arts National Heritage Fellowship. Roy has also received the SV Creates Legacy Laureate, San Jose Arts Commission Cornerstone of the Arts, and has been a mentor in the Alliance for California Traditional Arts Master Program. In 2017, he performed at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and the Library of Congress Noontime Series and continues to perform and conduct workshops internationally.

Roy’s influence extends far beyond his local community. He is a respected figure in the national arts community, having served on the boards for Western Arts Alliance, Japantown Community Congress of San Jose, School of Arts & Culture at Mexican Heritage Plaza, and SVCreates. As a founding member of 1st ACT Silicon Valley, the Multicultural Arts Leadership Institute, and the Taiko Community Alliance, he has left an indelible mark on the arts landscape. He is currently on the California Arts Council. His leadership has been recognized with the American Leadership Forum Silicon Valley John W. Gardner Leadership Award and in the 2017 US-Japan Council Japanese American Leadership Delegation. In 2023, he received the California Arts Council Legacy Individual Artist Fellowship, and the Japanese government bestowed upon him the prestigious Order of the Rising Sun with Gold and Silver Rays, a testament to his global impact.

PJ Hirabayashi is a pioneer of the North American taiko movement. She is a practitioner, teacher, performer, and culture bearer of Taiko, the Japanese drum. She is the Artistic Director Emeritus and an original performing member of San José Taiko, the third taiko group to form in the U.S. in 1973. Her home is in San José Japantown on the unceded lands of the Muwekma Ohlone. It is one of the last three remaining historic Japantowns in the U.S. that has embraced taiko as a cultural expression of the community. PJ is a community-builder and a catalyst in amplifying the visibility, preservation, and vitality of San José Japantown.

Her signature composition “Ei Ja Nai Ka” is performed throughout the world; it commemorates immigrant life through taiko drumming, dance, and song. In 2008, she founded “TaikoPeace”, a movement to spread the kinetic energy, spiritual vibration, and pure joy of Japanese taiko drumming to inspire positive social change and a peaceful world. “Peace” is her acronym for “Partnerships, Empathy, And Creative Empowerment”.

PJ shares her work and passion for taiko with her husband, Roy Hirabayashi. In 2023, they celebrated their 50-year milestone for their taiko work. Together, they have been honored for their dedication and leadership in the arts in receiving lifetime achievement awards: “Artist Legacy Laureate” from Silicon Valley Creates, “Cornerstone of the Arts” from the City of San José, and the “National Heritage Fellowship for Traditional and Folk Arts” from the National Endowment for the Arts.

As Taproot artists, we will live through the cultural expression and vibrant, transformative energy of Taiko to remember and pass on the history, knowledge, and wisdom of our ancestors (indigenous and diasporic) to future generations with the values of respect, humility, integrity, perseverance, empathy, and gratitude. Foster well-being, personal/collective empowerment, connection, and community. And support the power of our cultural arts to come together in the spirit of celebration and healing of our humanity and place of Being and for co-creating a healthy planet and world.

Ofelia Esparza, and her daughter Rosanna Esparza Ahrens, represent six and seven generations of altar makers, or “altristas” from their maternal lineage, who were all born and raised in the same town called, Huanimaro, Guanajuato, Mexico. The grandmothers are Martina Rodriguez (b.1784), Anastacia Morado (b.1800), Luz Mendoza (b.1832), Hipolita Tinoco “Mama Pola”(b.1857), Matilde Tinoco (b.1869), Maria Salud Garcia (b.1886), and, Guadalupe Salazar “Mama Lupe” (b.1904).

Mama Pola, Ofelia’s great great grandmother was the culture bearer who imparted her knowledge of food-making, ancestor-honoring and indigenous feast day observances with three generations of her granddaughters, the last one being Mama Lupe, who in turn brought her culture with her to the U.S. via Chicago, IL. (1921), then East Los Angeles, CA (1930). Mama Lupe became the culture bearer for subsequent generations and although she never called herself an artist, her devotion to her family and culture was her art form, demonstrated by her resourceful “making,” from la cocina to la ofrenda (the kitchen to the altar). She taught her daughter, Ofelia (b.1932), that her practice went beyond devotion; it was an obligation to remember the ancestors. Mama Lupe taught through her storytelling, during food prep or paper-crafting for different feast days, while giving meticulous instructions on how to plan, assemble, and declare a space as sacred.

Ofelia was a curious student who absorbed everything she was taught and passed on her knowledge, to her family and beyond – her beloved East L. A. community. Rosanna was also a first hand witness of Mama Lupe’s energy and teachings. She has already taken on the mantle of altar maker, carrying forward the tradition to future generations. The duo have been collaborating together for the last 20 years and Rosanna is now a Master altar maker as designated by her community.

Being Taproot Fellows acknowledges that the work we do as altar makers has created a groundswell of connection and curiosity regarding ancestor and nature honoring in the community and beyond. This recognition acknowledges that collective remembering and collective grieving is an essential practice that deepens to our understanding of our diverse indigenous identities which have universal significance because our kinship with the cosmos.

Meklit Hadero is an Ethiopian-born, San Francisco-based vocalist, composer, cultural strategist and former refugee, known for her electric performances and vibrant cultural activism. Her Ethio-Jazz music has reached the top of world music charts across the US and Europe and been featured by the New York Times, BBC, NPR, CNN, San Francisco Chronicle, and many more. Meklit’s latest EP, Ethio Blue, was released this past March. She has performed on four continents, and is a household name in her home country of Ethiopia, where her music videos air daily on national television.

Meklit straddles her creative practice with her passion for cultural activism. She is the former Chief of Program at YBCA (2020-2022), former co-director of the Red Poppy Art House, co-founder of the Nile Project, and a featured voice in UN Women’s theme song. Meklit has given talks on multiple TED Stages, at the UN, and at the National Geographic Storytellers Summit.

Meklit is a National Geographic Explorer, and a TED Sr. Fellow, and has collaborated with world renowned musicians, such as Kronos Quartet, Andrew Bird, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and the legendary founder of funk music, Pee Wee Eliis. Meklit is host and co-founder of Movement, a podcast, radio series and live show uplifting the songs and stories of immigrant musicians, airing to nearly 3 million listeners as a nationally syndicated feature on PRX’s The World. Meklit’s five year old son is one of her greatest musical inspirations.

Being a Taproot Artist is an incredible support, which I am so grateful for. I *especially* appreciate the fact that this is general operating support, and that so much care and cultural sensitivity has gone into every step of designing the program. This fellowship is based in trusting artists who are on a lifelong path to do work that blooms from community practice. We feel it. I am also so excited to have the opportunity to further invest in my community through this fellowship.