...PREFACE 2022
With our entire world warped and transformed by the Covid-19 pandemic and by a political push towards and against paleoconservative nationalism with its classist, racist, and misogynistic agendas, Mivia Street offers our communities a new issue in print and online—with voices and visions of the diverse thinkers, artists, writers, and designers of Berkeley City College. We’ve been in publication since 1989 and launching writers and artists for careers in the arts. By encouraging students to connect their lives and concerns to their art form, we help nurture artists with strong social engagement. Our web version—www.milviastreet.com—continues to expand our readership across the globe. Our print version allows readers to hold the beautifully designed issue in their hands and for the work to be archived and available for decades, if not centuries, to come.
This year Mivia Street honors Adam David Miller, poet, editor, memoirist, and Laney English faculty emeritus, who founded Good News, the long-running literary arts journal at Laney College that also inspired Mivia Street. Miller taught at Laney for 21 years, transforming students’ lives by making their writing strong and heard. After retirement, Miller turned his full attention to writing and regularly visited BCC English classes that taught his memoir Ticket to Exile, speaking about writing, his life, and addressing students’ questions until his mid-90s. Beyond his commitment to community college students, Adam David Miller promoted, published, and showcased many Black/BIPOC writers and artists. He edited Dices, or Black Bones in 1970, introducing the poetry of many Black writers to the general public, featuring the early poetry of Al Young, Ishmael Reed, Clarence Major, Lucille Clifton, Etheridge Knight and Victor Hernandez. Miller organized Aldridge Players West, a Black theater company. He founded Mina Press, which published Japanese American Women: Three Generations by Mei T. Nakano in 1990. Miller created programs for public television and radio for over 30 years, presenting literature by Nisei (Japanese-Americans) and broadcasts on women’s and labor history. On November 4, 2020, Adam David Miller peacefully transitioned to the ancestors. He was 98. Berkeley City College students. The 2022 issue has come to fruition due to the persistence and hard work of the core members of the Milvia Street club: Jay Whittington, president, Laila Diaz, Elaine Dowd, antmen pimentel mendoza, Carla Schick, and Grace Villa. We believe in preserving a place for dissention and the rebellious spirit of art and continue to work to create space for both.
On the cover of Milvia Street 2022, we are honored to feature Adam David Miller’s portrait painted by his neighbor, BCC artist Jessica Phrogus.
Inside the covers, this new issue gathers a compelling sequence of voices, perspectives, and styles to remind us we live in a rich diversity of irreducible positions and realities. Most are writers and poets whose work is appearing in Milvia Street for the first time, like T. Abeyta, Emma Arnesty-Good, Pablo Bautista, Mylene A. Cahambing, Elaine de Coligny, Laila Diaz, Chloe Donnelly, Elaine Dowd, Katie Hunter, Bev Lesch, Mary Magagna, antmen pimentel mendoza, Sarah Morgan, Bear Rodrigues-Kindfield, Kai Sugioka-Stone, Lauren Traetto, Celo Verari, Jay Whittington, Auburn Wilson IV, and Tim Xonnelly. For many, it is their first time in print. We also welcome back writers whose work we’ve been so honored to publish in previous issues: Zoey Bloom, Vida Felsenfeld, Shira Freehling, Yohana Girma Gebre, Thomas A. E. Hesketh, and Liz McCall.
Milvia Street art and literary journal was founded to showcase the diverse voices and visions of Berkeley City College students. The 2022 issue has come to fruition due to the persistence and hard work of the core members of the Milvia Street club: Jay Whittington, president, Laila Diaz, Elaine Dowd, antmen pimentel mendoza, Carla Schick, and Grace Villa. We believe in preserving a place for dissention and the rebellious spirit of art and continue to work to create space for both.
We also want to especially thank Colin Dodsworth and Fred Dodsworth for lending us their talents in web, book, and graphic design. Without them, this issue would not exist. And a huge thank you to Sharon Coleman for organizing the entire production, financing, events, and promotion.
Milvia Street 2022 has come to print thanks to the fiscal generosity of the Berkeley Civic Arts Commission and community support.