Inabel Nga Indayon
(Inabel Cradle)
Inabel nga Indayon (Inabel Cradle) is a project by Rachel Lozada who is very humbled and excited to creatively and culturally engage the Filipino-American community in traditional Ilocano weaving. Inabel is the term for Ilocano handwoven fabrics.
Workshop Information
The first phase of the project supported by Balay Kreative offers two weaving discussion workshops, adding to arts programming in the SOMA Pilipinas Filipino Cultural Heritage District of San Francisco. The first workshop will be held at Sunday Streets on Oct. 25, from 1:30-3:30 pm, on Folsom Street between 6th and 8th Streets. Participants can expect to find out more about the project, basic Ilocano weaving, and to try their hands learning basic weaving skills.
Participation will be on a sliding scale ($5-10, no one turned away for lack of funds) mostly to defray the cost of mini-weaving kits which each participant gets to bring home. It will be strictly compliant with Covid-19 safety measures (face masks, hand hygiene, social distancing, small group size). Attendance slots are limited, so register soon. Everyone is welcome regardless of weaving experience. A second workshop is planned for Spring 2021.
Kadaanan Kusikos Palaka
Call for Participants
Besides the broad community, Rachel hopes to specifically engage descendants of Manongs and Manangs for them to deepen the creative and community building process of the project. Workshop attendees and Rachel will weave pieces of inabel which will be shared with the community in June 2021 in an event to mark the 75th year publication of America is in the Heart. This is the quintessential novel about the lives and struggles of Manongs as migrant farm and cannery workers, written by Carlos Bulosan – himself an Ilocano Manong and farm labor organizer. The presenting event will share the woven pieces-in-progress, and will feature related existing works by other artists --literary, performance, or film and help launch Phase 2 of Inabel nga Indayon.
Vintage Photograph of Hawaiian Sakadas
Rachel Lozada
About the Project
The project pays homage to thousands of Filipino men, predominantly Ilocanos, who for decades starting in 1917, were brought to the US to work in pineapple and sugarcane plantations in Hawai’i in tuna and salmon canneries in Alaska and Seattle, and farms up and down the West Coast. Called Manongs, (“Older Brothers” in Ilocano language), they lived and worked in abject conditions, were paid the barest minimum wages, forbidden from having relations and marrying white women, and faced social isolation, racist hostility and violence.
The project also honors the Manangs (Older Sisters), Filipinas who came prior to World War II, and in greater numbers post-war, as wives/fiancees of Manongs, and Filipino and American servicemen. Despite severe challenges, Manongs and Manangs persevered and formed the bedrock of the Filipino-American community in the US. Most of them never made it back to their families and homeland. Many of them and immigrant Filipino families lived in the South of Market area through the 1970s-80s until gentrification pushed them out. The creation of Inabel nga Indayon which represents a typical Ilocano handwoven blanket used as a cradle or hammock, provides a metaphorical "coming home" for Manongs and Manangs to find rest and solace on a woven piece of their homeland.
About the Artist
Rachel is a community-based arts worker and weaver focused on traditional and indigenous Filipino weaving practices who’s committed to helping create a renaissance of Filipino weaving in the diaspora. Since 2013, she’s been doing weaving demonstrations, workshops, and collaborative projects with various community and arts organizations. Most of these she did as an apprentice weaver with Kalingafornia Laga, the only Filipino-American weaving circle in the country. These Inabel nga Indayon workshops will lay the foundation for the eventual creation of an originally designed inabel blanket/cradle cloth (Phase 2 of the project) -- the first to be woven in the US in contemporary times.
Rachel Lozada is a 2020 Balay Kreative Grantee.