At Sunday Jump in Historic Filipinotown, Words Gain Power
When Eddy Gana Jr. and Stephanie Sajor launched Sunday Jump, a community open mic in Historic Filipinotown in 2012, an audience of around four people showed up.
It took place at a now-closed Tribal Cafe on Beverly Boulevard in Rampart Village just two blocks away from Virgil Avenue.
"It was very small," Sajor said, "as with anything that first starts out."
Despite its initial crowd, Sunday Jump became an important space in the community because it became the longest-running Filipino American-founded open mic series in Historic Filipinotown. It provides not only a place for community members to perform spoken word, but one that raises awareness about community organizations, current events and local businesses.
Gana and Sajor said they, along with Janice Lobo Sapigao, drew inspiration for Sunday Jump from multiple open mic spaces, particularly Tuesday Night Cafe, a public arts and performance series that takes place in Downtown Los Angeles and spotlights Asian American voices, andCommon Ground in Orange County, an open mic series that highlights Vietnamese American voices.
One of the first things they solidified when they created Sunday Jump were two community guidelines: express — not impress, and free speech — not hate speech.
Sajor said Sunday Jump's mission is to facilitate a safe space for marginalized voices to express themselves, share stories and create genuine connections to the arts.
It's a mission that Xuan Espinoza, Sunday Jump's first featured artist in 2012, says the space accomplished for him. He also eventually joined the organizing team as resident DJ and sound engineer.
The open mic was a place where Espinoza was able to talk about some vulnerable and trying life experiences. Some of his poems were about the first time someone pointed a gun at him, the first time he saw someone get robbed, and his experiences with violence and trauma.
It was only Sunday Jump that really created an environment where I felt comfortable talking about some of those things.Xuan Espinoza, Sunday Jump resident DJ and sound engineer
"It was only Sunday Jump that really created an environment where I felt comfortable talking about some of those things," he said.
For Espinoza, Sunday Jump has provided more than just a place for him to perform spoken word. He credits his involvement in it to success in other endeavors he has pursued in recent years.
Shortly before the coronavirus pandemic caused widespread shut down of establishments, events and gatherings, he cofounded an open mic in Baldwin Park called One Mic Collective. The space focuses on the San Gabriel Valley.
Espinoza also now runs a successful coffee shop called Cafe Cafe inside Milpa Grill, a restaurant in Boyle Heights. He held his first coffee shop pop up at a Sunday Jump open mic night in 2018.
"Sunday Jump created something that I wanted to believe was possible but had never yet seen or experienced, which was an open mic that went beyond poetry," he said, noting that the space has given different types of artists — including dancers — as well as culinary creatives the opportunity to express themselves.
Expanding the space to highlight local businesses and various types of artists is one of the ways Sunday Jump has changed throughout the last decade. It also transitioned from a year-round open mic on the first and third Sundays of the month to one that runs from March through November each year. It has grown into an arts organization that holds workshops on the third Sundays of the month with featured artists and food vendors inside and outside the space to help attract passersby who may be curious about what's happening in the space.
Its eighth season in 2020 was entirely online (with the exception of its season opener) due to lockdowns instituted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
They've also dedicated time during open mic nights to highlight critical developments in Historic Filipinotown, including the proposed development of a design district a few years ago thatactivists argued would have displaced residents. Gana said the district would have shut down some mental health centers and family-owned businesses, and that many residents weren't aware of the proposal.
"Through Sunday Jump, we were able to push that word out and get the support of residents, and so there was a delay on the design district because that's not that's not what the community wants," Gana said.
Another significant evolution for Sunday Jump that Gana and Sajor said they've seen since it first started is the size of its audience. From about four people during its first open mic, they estimated a crowd of about 90 during one of its recent season openers.
Over the last decade, the open mic has been held in various locations, including the restaurant Kapistahan Grill in Luzon Plaza and Tribal Cafe on Temple Street. It currently takes place at the non-profit Pilipino Workers Center on Glendale Boulevard. But one of the things the cofounders are determined to keep in place as Sunday Jump moves forward is to have the open mic stay within Historic Filipinotown.
"One of the things that Eddy asks a lot of the time at the beginning of the open mic is, 'For how many people here is it your first time in Historic Filipinotown?' And more often than not, there's a lot of people who raise their hands," Sajor said. "I think that's one of the cool things, that we're able to bring exposure to the neighborhood itself by having this event there. I think it's really cool — even though it's open to all people of color — it's very obvious that there's a lot of Filipino influence."
Gana said that organizers are able to inform and educate people not only about how the neighborhood came into existence through Sunday Jump, but about Filipino history; about when Filipinos first arrived in the United States, about the existence of the Little Manila enclave in Stockton, California, and waves of Filipino migration into the country.
Sunday Jump used to end its open mics with a community poem that everyone in the audience would recite to close out the night, Gana said. But organizers decided to change that.
Each open mic ends with a ritual called Isang Bagsak, which means "one down, one fall, onto the next," Gana said. It starts with a slow unity clap that Sajor says is in sync with the heartbeat of the people that increases in tempo to something like a rousing cry or crescendo. The clapping culminates when everyone in the space says, "isang bagsak."
Theunity clap was used to unite Filipino and Latino farmworkers who did not share the same language during the farmworker's movement in the 1960s. The Isang Bagsak single clap emerged during the People Power Movement in the 1980s that ousted former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos and denounced the human rights violations happening at the time. Filipino youth organizers in the 2000s brought these two concepts together and that is how every Sunday Jump show now ends.
"[It's] to show, one meeting down or one march down, onto the next march," Gana said. “It also means that if one of us falls down, we all fall. On other side of it, if one of us rises, we all rise."
Sunday Jump will open its 10th season on Sunday. And as its milestone anniversary unfolds, a number of plans remain uncertain due to the ongoing pandemic, including the season's start date. Gana and Sajor said they hope to have another in-personKatipunan Poetry Slam, an annual event that they describe as a modern-day form of "balagtasan," a traditional Filipino poetic debate. They'd also like to publish more chapbooks that contain poetry about specific themes.
One area of focus for organizers is on sustainability efforts, particularly funding through grants and other avenues to keep the space going.
Gana, who uses they/them pronouns, said that what drives them to continue with Sunday Jump all these years later is because the arts are their self-care. They remembered their introduction to spoken word in high school when circumstances were challenging; when they lost their grandmother and didn't have too many friends at the time. Being in an open mic space provided them a safe space to share their story and to be inspired by the stories of others. It also allowed them to realize the importance of community care, and of upholding and uplifting one another.
"With Sunday Jump and community care, we're able to feel healthy, able to feel well and whole," Gana said. "And I hope that other folks are able to find that too."
