Future Ancestors: Navigating Decolonization and Embracing Ancestral Wisdom
In this episode, we had the honor of speaking with Dr. Leny Strobel, a pioneer in decolonization and re-indigenization. We explore her journey, the vital role of "Babaylan," and indigenous wisdom. Discover how Filipino Indigenous Knowledge brings positive change. Learn from Dr. Strobel's wisdom on bridging generations and reconnecting with heritage. She shares practical steps for decolonization. Plus, catch our rapid-fire segment for insights into her experiences.
Pinays without a Pause: Dr. Leny Strobel—Co-Founder, Writer, and Former Professor
It’s our season finale!! Rae and Bee chat with Dr. Leny Strobel on Babaylan Studies, community, and our ancestors.
Evolve Magazin: Der lange Körper
(Interview with Leny Mendoza Strobel in Evolve Magazin.)
Evolve: The process of decolonization has become your life's work. How did you come to the realization, how important is that for yourself, for the Filipino people, but also on a global scale?
Strobel: I was 30 years old when I married my husband and came to the US. I had a corporate career in Human Resources and basically a neocolonial education that was American-patterned. So, when I came here, I thought that my adjustment would be easy. But when I started encountering people's responses to me, I began to wonder why they would look at me and say: “How come you know how to speak English? Did he pick you out of a catalog?” I asked myself: don't they know anything about Filipino American history? And I realized that they didn't…
Green Dreamer Podcast: Finding Belonging and Remembering How to Dwell in Place
“You can use all the deconstructive theories, post-colonial, postmodern theorizing. But then there comes a time when your body begins to speak. What is your body saying? For me, that is when decolonization evolved into something that’s no longer metaphorical—something more real and material. ”
— DR. LENY STROBEL
KAPWA: Filipino Writers on History, Legacy and Building Community—Hosted by the Daly City Public Library
Kapwa is Tagalog for fellowmen or community. Join us for a panel discussion with authors Eileen R. Tabios, Kirby Pábalan-Táyag Aráullo, Vince Gotera, and Leny Mendoza Strobel.
EXCHANGE WITH EILEEN R. TABIOS ON DOVELION: A FAIRY TALE FOR OUR TIMES (AC Books, 2021)
Leny Mendoza Strobel: Your novel DOVELION: A Fairy Tale for Our Times (AC Books, 2021) is expansive—art, poetry, history, shadow material, colonial adventures, love, ideologies. How did you decide on what kind of character would best embody these vast themes?
Eileen R. Tabios: In a way, I didn’t decide; the novel itself did—I approached the novel as I do a poem and so, as with the poem, the work wrote itself…
The Halo-Halo Review: POST-BOOKS—LENY MENDOZA STROBEL
The Halo-Halo Review is pleased to interview authors in the aftermath of their books' releases. This issue's featured authors include Leny Mendoza Strobel.
Kultivating Kapwa (Episode 2.26): Reflecting and Visioning Kultivating Kapwa - Summer 2021
This is Kultivating Kapwa, hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig and Olivia Sawi.
In our FIRST series, we sit down and ask Auntie Leny questions about her life, her work, decolonization, academia, ethnoautobiography, her relationship to nature, the land, and all living beings, and her views of the future.In this special episode, we give an introduction to Decolonization and Leny Strobel. This is a great starting point for gaining background knowledge of the topics we will be covering in the podcast.
North Fork Arts Project: LENY M. STROBEL—"THE ZEN OF DOODLES"
EILEEN (ET): Please share the background to these doodles or sketches. How did you come to start making them?
LENY (LS): I started these doodles in 2015 around the time that Zentangle was trending. I have a relative who was into it and she got me interested. I was also in recovery from a medical condition that required me to slow down and be quiet. These doodles were my way of getting my mind out of the way.
Embodiment Matters: Decolonization—A Conversation with Dr. Leny Strobel
In this episode, Erin speaks with Dr. Leny Strobel about her decades of work in decolonization, as a Filipina American, as well as in her role as a “settler” in her home in Northern California, and how it all connects with being embodied. We explore issues of race, of choosing to live small, of how to become indigenous to the place on earth we inhabit, and so much more. Leny is truly a wise elder and her kind heart, spacious awareness, and deep integrity, developed over many decades of deep exploration, are a gift. I hope you enjoy the episode.
Yogi Monica Anderson
I've never joined a gym in my life. The ambience just never feels right to my Filipina sensibility. So, when I walked into Tone Fitness Studio in Santa Rosa, California a year ago, something felt different. The place is warm and inviting. I noticed the sacred altars in various corners. I took note of the long counter where the members bring in flowers and produce from their gardens to share. I took note of the smiling faces of the staff. When I met the owner, Monica Anderson, something clicked. Of course, I thought, this third-generation Filipina American business owner knows how to build community.
When I asked if I could interview her for this piece, there was a long pause. She says that she feels uncomfortable talking about herself to a large public. But she felt that this was something she could do for me. I told her that we would trust the Universe and her purpose (in giving me the idea and the permission Monica grants me) to be revealed in time.
Revolutionary Wellness: Learning How to Dwell in a Place—A Practice in Decolonization with Dr. Leny Strobel and Dr. Bayo Akomolafe pt. 3 of 3
How might we learn how to Dwell in a Place, learn how to be part of the landscape, or learn how to see and feel in a whole new way? By learning how to dance, chant, and do ritual? To greet the ancient redwoods in our backyards every morning and hug the trees in the garden? To put our hands in the soil and try to learn the names of all the non-human beings we live with? All these take time. Slowness is key.
Practicing presence is difficult for us in this modern culture. We are latecomers to this way of being and while we may still feel resistance sometimes, this may be the essential practice to undo our current cultural conditionings.
Join us for this conversation on disengaging from the intellectual life that demands a loyalty to the faculty of reason with the body and emotions served only as side dishes on the menu of the canon and learn how to bring your whole self - body, mind, heart, spirit - into the only life you have to live, because when you do it changes everything.
Part 3 of 3.
Revolutionary Wellness: Learning How to Dwell in a Place—A Practice in Decolonization with Dr. Leny Strobel and Dr. Bayo Akomolafe pt. 2 of 3
How might we learn how to Dwell in a Place, learn how to be part of the landscape, or learn how to see and feel in a whole new way? By learning how to dance, chant, and do ritual? To greet the ancient redwoods in our backyards every morning and hug the trees in the garden? To put our hands in the soil and try to learn the names of all the non-human beings we live with? All these take time. Slowness is key.
Practicing presence is difficult for us in this modern culture. We are latecomers to this way of being and while we may still feel resistance sometimes, this may be the essential practice to undo our current cultural conditionings.
Join us for this conversation on disengaging from the intellectual life that demands a loyalty to the faculty of reason with the body and emotions served only as side dishes on the menu of the canon and learn how to bring your whole self - body, mind, heart, spirit - into the only life you have to live, because when you do it changes everything.
Part 2 of 3.
Revolutionary Wellness: Learning How to Dwell in a Place—A Practice in Decolonization with Dr. Leny Strobel and Dr. Bayo Akomolafe pt. 1 of 3
How might we learn how to Dwell in a Place, learn how to be part of the landscape, or learn how to see and feel in a whole new way? By learning how to dance, chant, and do ritual? To greet the ancient redwoods in our backyards every morning and hug the trees in the garden? To put our hands in the soil and try to learn the names of all the non-human beings we live with? All these take time. Slowness is key.
Practicing presence is difficult for us in this modern culture. We are latecomers to this way of being and while we may still feel resistance sometimes, this may be the essential practice to undo our current cultural conditionings.
Join us for this conversation on disengaging from the intellectual life that demands a loyalty to the faculty of reason with the body and emotions served only as side dishes on the menu of the canon and learn how to bring your whole self - body, mind, heart, spirit - into the only life you have to live, because when you do it changes everything.
Part 1 of 3.
INQUIRER.net: Dr. Leny Strobel’s Journey of Self-Discovery
She is a professor, an eminent scholar, author, activist, a babaylan-inspired woman and a lot more. But she also calls herself a “settler” and a “colonized person,” and she has embarked on a long and arduous journey to unlearn 500 years of colonial influence, which had shaped her consciousness and identity.
This is the process of “decolonization,” a word that did not circulate very much in the Filipino community in the United States in the early ‘90s.
“When I was decolonizing, I became aware of the insidious and unconscious messages I was internalizing–our ‘inferiority,’ our brownness, our need to be ‘improved and corrected’; our need to be whitened. For a while, I even bought whitening products for my face,” she says.
The journey of Dr. Elenita Fe (Leny) Luna Mendoza-Strobel, professor at the American Multicultural Studies Department of Sonoma State University and Project Director of the Center for Babaylan Studies, is far from over.
Interview with Gemma Benton: Ancestors & Art
Gemma Benton is a Spiritual Activist, Native American singer, creator of Healing Her Story Oracle Cards and the Ancestor's Journey. She is Menominee and Filipina and lives in the Sacramento area.
For the past thirty years Gemma has been involved with issues concerning intergenerational and historical trauma and traditional healing in Native American and indigenous communities.
Interview with Ilaya Malaya: Being Indigenous
Mrs. Leny Strobel being interviewed by Ilaya Malaya on what it means to be indigenous.
Interview with Molly Arthur: Decolonization as a Spiritual Path
What is a colonized person? How do we overcome the internalized oppression of colonization? How do non-indigenous people understand a connection to their original homeland without being on the land?
"If decolonization has taught us anything, it's this: part of our own healing is to no longer be the willing receptacle of these projections from the colonizer. What then becomes of us when we are emptied of colonial projections? I was reminded by a very wise woman mentor from India that my colonized self is only a sliver in the totality of my Filipino self. Yet, temporarily, it was necessary for the process of decolonization to take up time and space in the psyche in order to purge these projections so that I can come home full circle to the largeness of my own indigenous self.”
"I use the term indigenous to refer to the self that has found its place, its home in the world. Emptied of projections of "inferiority,' "third world," "undeveloped," "uncivilized," "exotic and primitive," and "modernizing," it is the self capable of conjuring one's place and growing roots through the work of imagination, re-framing history, and re-telling the Filipino story that centers our history of resistance, survival, and re-generation."
"Our primary babaylans and babaylan-inspired kapwa are still with us. In land-based tribal communities in the Philippines, they perform their roles as they have done for thousands of years. Karl Gaspar calls them "organic mystics." In the diaspora, he calls them "mystics in exile." Among Filipinos in the homeland and in the diaspora, decolonizing Filipinos claim the babaylan spirit as an inheritance that is available to all who wish to follow an indigenous Filipino spiritual path."
Sonoma State University: Interview with Karen Pennrich—Honoring our Babaylan Ancestors
In this 10-minute video documentary, Karen Pennrich, Customer Service Specialist, interviews Prof. Leny Strobel, AMCS Department Chair and Project Director of the Center for Babaylan Studies.
The documentary also includes a photomontage of the First International Babaylan Conference held at SSU on April 17-19, 2010.