How An Asian American Family is Reimagining Healing and Liberation Through Farming, Education and the Arts
Newly formed organization ‘The Remagination Lab’ offer creative and transformative programs and services informed by social justice movements, indigenous and land-based knowledge, the arts, radical love, and healing
Dr. Robyn Rodriguez and Joshua Vang at the Remagination Farm. (photo credit: Remagination Lab)
Unceded Miwok and Pomo Territory/Sacramento, CA - March 1, 2023 - The Remagination Lab, Founded by highly accomplished researcher and well-loved community advocate, Dr. Robyn Rodriguez, and her husband, second-generation Hmong refugee and nature expert Joshua Vang, incubates and experiments in producing creatively bold, unconventional, and deeply transformative programs and services informed by social justice movements, indigenous and land-based knowledge, the arts, radical love, and healing. Dr. Rodriguez and Vang will formally launch the Remagination Farm, and Amado Khaya House with locations in unceded Pomo, Nisenan, Maidu, Miwok and Me-Wuk territories, also known as Sacramento County and Lake County, CA, on May 6, 2023 in a ticketed event.
As life partners, Dr. Rodriguez and Vang have developed a family and minority-owned social enterprise that offers multiple programs and services for Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) who are scholars, teachers, students, community organizers, activists, artists, creatives, and entrepreneurs and are inspired by and committed to social justice.
“It’s been a year since I launched the School for Liberating Education and I am thrilled that I’ve been able to offer social justice-informed, life-changing learning experiences to the community,” says Dr. Robyn Rodriguez. “This year I’m excited to announce that we’re taking the School for Liberating Education to the next level by offering opportunities for intimate, in-person learning experiences at both the Amado Khaya Healing House and the Remagination Farm. I look forward to incorporating land-based and indigenous knowledge into our curriculum through this expansion of our offerings.”
The Remagination Lab offers the following programs:
ElementALL
Amado’s Khaya Healing House
The School for Liberating Education
The School for Liberating Education makes Ethnic Studies accessible beyond the confines of higher education institutions by providing university-level, online Ethnic Studies courses directly to any life-long learner. There are currently three self-paced online courses available:
Asian American Activism, mini-course
Asian America, mini-course
Filipinos in America, 6-month course
More courses, including in-person options, reflecting the histories and experiences of BIPOC are forthcoming.
ElementALL
Led by Joshua Vang, ElementALL offers programs that promote nature awareness and appreciation as well as basic survival skills that are informed by ancestral and indigenous, land-based knowledge and environmental justice. ElementALL prioritizes the mental and physical well-being of its BIPOC participants by providing introductory workshops and programs that center safety and care.
ElementAll especially addresses the “nature gap,” that is, the historical marginalization of BIPOC and other communities from enjoying nature-based, outdoor recreation activities. The systemic and historic factors that contribute to the inequitable access to nature include:
BIPOC are more likely to live in nature-deprived areas due to redlining, forced migration, and economic segregation
Fear of the outdoors due to racial violence and discrimination
White-washing of land ownership that erases Indigenous history and livelihood.
“For my community, cultivating a respectful relationship with the land was necessary not only for survival but also for healing,” shares co-founder Joshua Vang. It bothers me that companies that sell products for outdoor recreation (fishing, camping, hiking, etc.) don’t even bother to try to reach out to our communities. It’s disturbing that many of the public parks (county, state and national) don’t have much BIPOC representation in their marketing materials either, or that white folks in these spaces make us feel unwelcome. The truth is, we are out here and I hope my services can help more BIPOC people join us.”
The Remagination Farm
Principles of sustainability and regeneration inspire the Remagination Farm, which intends to implement intergenerational farming techniques that draw on the owners’ Hmong and Philippine ancestry, along with local Native American indigenous land knowledge.
The Remagination Farm, spanning 8 acres of land, is located in Lake County and will be the site for in-person learning opportunities offered by the Remagination Lab. For those who wish to support the project, Dr. Rodriguez and Vang are offering the opportunity to become Founding Members of the Remagination Farm at $10/month (for a household of up to four people) during the Farm’s first year of operation. Founding Members are eligible for lifetime benefits which include free day trips to the Farm, discounts on overnight stays at both the Farm and the Amado Khaya Healing House, advance notice and discounts for workshops, classes and retreats offered at both properties and more. The membership, more importantly, is an investment in a family and BIPOC-owned social enterprise rooted in social and environmental justice. Bartering options are also available. Eventually, Founding Membership will also include access to farm produce and the opportunity to lease small plots on the farm. For more information on membership opportunities, please visit https://liberatingeducation.thinkific.com/bundles/remagination-farm-founding.
Honoring Amado Khaya and Supporting Community Wealth
In August 2020, Dr. Rodriguez’s older son, Amado Khaya Canham Rodriguez, passed away suddenly at the age of 22 while working with indigenous communities in the Philippines.
Social justice and activism have been essential parts of Amado’s life and upbringing. As a family-owned social enterprise, the Remagination Lab is committed to the redistribution and regeneration of resources, proceeds will be reinvested in a non-profit called the Amado Khaya Foundation, local indigenous groups, and other causes that share the foundation’s values and world-view.
Dr. Rodriguez purchased the Amado Khaya Healing House as a means of honoring Amado Khaya Canham Rodriguez. The Amado Khaya Healing House serves as the headquarters for the Amado Khaya Foundation and will be where the Foundation’s programs will principally take place. The Healing House is just 20 minutes from the Remagination Farm, located at the foot of Mt. Konocti. Sitting on 3 acres, Amado Khaya, with commanding views of Clear Lake, is truly a refuge and sanctuary. The house is at an elevation such that hawks and eagles fly past the wrap-around deck on a regular basis.
“I think of freedom and liberation as being in a society freed from the oppressive exploitative systems of white supremacy, colonialism, imperialism, heteropatriarchy, and ableism,” Dr. Rodriguez says. “The wisdom of having been an organizer for so long, having lost my son and other kinds of losses in my life, has led me to a more holistic understanding of what liberation will truly take. As we dismantle these oppressive, exploitative systems, we need to attend to healing the harms these systems have caused so we have greater capacity to create new institutions rooted in radical love.”
Upcoming Events and Programs
Robyn and her youngest son, tending to their crops on the Remagination Farm. (photo credit Remagination Farm)
Remagination Farm Launch Event: May 6, 2023 | Register through Eventbrite here
Tickets (bartering options are also available):
General Admission (1st Person in party of 4 ) $125.00
General Admission (Persons 2-4 in party of 4) $75.00
The program for the launch will include the following:
Arrival & Community Building (food and drink from local producers will be offered)
Land Acknowledgement & Altar Making
Sharing of Vision
Farm Tour
Kamayan-style meal
Community Art Activation
Optional Tours of Amado Khaya of the Amado Khaya House (about a 20 minutes drive from the farm), Highland Springs, Clear Lake State Park, wine/olive oil tastings from local vineyards, and the local creek can also be facilitated.
Inaugural “Balik sa Bukid (Return to the Farm): A Program for Families,” in-person event, Saturday, June 17, 2023. This program will showcase curriculum from ElementAll as well as offer a preview of a course to be offered by the School for Liberating Education. It is especially geared toward families with children between the ages of 5-10.
For more information on Dr. Robyn Rodriguez and the Remagination Lab, please visit www.drrobynrodriguez.com/remagination-farm.
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About Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez — Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez is a widely published researcher, highly sought after speaker, and long-time community organizer, Dr. Rodriguez stands out among her peers not only for her research, teaching, and activism but also for her commitment to mentorship. She has worked tirelessly to support rising scholar-activists, K-14 progressive educators, and activists through her writing and teaching both in and out of the university classroom for nearly two decades. The loss of her 22-year old son Amado Khaya while he was working to serve indigenous communities in the Philippines, prompted Dr. Rodriguez to seek out a range of resources for her healing, and in the process, she made the bold choice to realign her life’s work of nearly 2 decades and liberate it from the confines of academia. The Remagination Lab allows Dr. Rodriguez to offer the same tireless energy and loving care to clients without the constraints of working within a university. Moreover, it allows her to assemble together her broad network of colleagues which not only includes fellow scholar-activists, educators, and community organizers, but also healers, creatives entrepreneurs, and more to offer inspired guidance to the Lab’s clientele. The Remagination Lab attempts to embody Amado Khaya’s spirit by encouraging unconventionality and boldness in approaches to social justice work while also being mindful of the need to ground that work in radical love and healing.
About Joshua Vang — Joshua Vang is a second-generation Hmong refugee whose parents fled Laos during the “Secret War” which took place in that country as part of the Vietnam War. Born in Richmond, He grew up throughout Northern CA living in rural as well as urban areas. As part of his parents’ struggle to support their 10 children, they not only used the knowledge about survival they brought with them from the jungles of Laos, where they were an ethnic minority group, they creatively adapted to the natural environment of their adopted home where they struggled with poverty and marginalization as people of color. They taught their children how to forage, fish, hunt, and trap not for leisure but for survival. Joshua extends this intergenerational knowledge as well as his deep love for being outdoors through ElementAll. Joshua is happiest, by any body of water, with a fishing rod in his hand and his family, especially his wife and son, by his side.