Sounds of the Underground 2025: Diasporic Kinships

A Reason to Sing: Asian American Music as an Avenue for Recognition, Resistance, and Recovery

Presented by: Darron Cunanan and students, Cal State LA

These past weeks, we have been exploring the experiences of Asian Americans in the diaspora, both immigrants and second generation.  Through our study of film, literature, and music we have discussed themes of identity, assimilation, transnationalism, activism, stereotypes, family, class, representation, and sexism.  For this project, the students will be highlighting Asian American musicians and analyzing the themes the artists tackle int their music.  Students will relate themes such race, class, gender, identity, assimilation, activism, and history as they discuss the relevance of Asian American music to the community.

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37 Bands; Punk Practice and Post Diaspora

Presented by: Dr. Nadia Buyse, University of Sussex

This presentation centers on the forthcoming manuscript 37 Bands: Punk Practice and Post Diaspora, an autoethnographic manuscript and art text that explores punk not as a musical genre or subculture, but as a radical and transformative methodology for art-making, performance, and community-building—particularly within the context of post-diasporic experience and identity. The work proposes that “punk practice” is not defined by a particular sound or style, but by an attitude of creating art in defiance of fixed rules, industry norms, and hegemonic spaces.

37 Bands highlights punk’s urgency, ephemerality, and collaborative nature, showing how starting bands, producing zines, or staging performances function as tools of cultural resistance, survival, and self-definition for marginalized identities. Structured like a mixtape, the manuscript assembles chapters, performance documentation, zines, images, and Fluxus-style scores that weave together theory, narrative, and case studies to trace the roots and afterlives of punk.

Central to this work is the argument that punk practice, like the post-diasporic condition, is fluid, unfixed, collaborative, and resistant to institutional categorization. Drawing on theory, anecdote, documentation, and ephemeral performances—including one-show-only bands formed globally through the How to Die/DIY score book—37 Bands functions both as a critical study and a lived experiment. Ultimately, it asks how making art “the punk way” can preserve diasporic knowledge, resist cultural erasure, and cultivate communities across borders.

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Alternative Subcultures: Freedom of Safe Self-Expression and Social Connection in an Otherwise Judgmental Society

Presented by: Angie Louie, UC Riverside/Cal State LA

This presentation examines the intersections of subcultures and activism through a combined exploration of undergraduate and graduate research on the perceptions, sense of community, and mental health of alternative subculture members. Drawing on data collected from young adults in Southern California’s alternative scenes—including goth, punk, emo, grunge, and heavy metal—the research challenges long-standing stereotypes that have blamed alternative subcultures for delinquent or suicidal behaviors. Instead, it highlights the ways these communities foster connection, expression, and resilience.

Findings indicate that alternative subculture members may report higher depressive symptoms and negative affect compared to their peers; however, these outcomes are interpreted not as consequences of subcultural affiliation but as evidence of the need for supportive spaces that validate marginalized identities and experiences. In this spirit, the presentation considers strategies for community building and activism within subcultural contexts.

One example is the founding of Alt’s Not Dead, a student organization at UC Riverside created to provide alternative subculture members with a safe, expressive community. Through events such as an “Emo Prom for Mental Health Awareness,” the organization has combined research dissemination with creative expression—zines, pins, patches—and public dialogue about how emo and related subcultures have historically facilitated conversations around mental health, gender expression, sexuality, and resistance to mainstream norms.

By situating these initiatives alongside ongoing thesis research, this presentation demonstrates how alternative subcultures function as sites of empowerment, cultural resistance, and mental health advocacy, while also contributing to broader understandings of well-being, social connection, and self-perception within marginalized communities.

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Dark Glamour & Gendered Risk: Women, Trans Men, and Gender Expansive Latines Navigating Safety, Belonging & Resistance in Los Ángeles’ Goth Queer Nightlife

Presented by: Cris Avitia Camacho, UCLA

This project investigates how queer, trans, and gender-expansive Latinx individuals—particularly those who are not cis men—navigate safety, vulnerability, belonging, and resistance within Los Ángeles’ goth, punk, and alternative nightlife scenes. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork at venues such as Blue Mondays and Club Disintegration, the research combines participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and analysis of music, fashion, and performance practices to examine nightlife as both a site of cultural production and political resistance.

Guided by theoretical frameworks including José Esteban Muñoz’s concept of disidentification, Ricky Ramos’s notion of unbelonging, and scholarship on embodied listening (Kheshti, Aparicio, Vázquez), the study considers how sonic and aesthetic practices enable participants to carve out spaces of survival, self-expression, and community-making. In addition to conventional methods, it incorporates testimonios—first-person narratives rooted in Chicanx feminist and Latin American traditions that center lived experience as collective knowledge.

By situating goth and punk nightlife within broader conversations about activism, solidarity, and cultural memory, the project highlights the role of marginalized voices in shaping Los Ángeles’ underground soundscapes and in reimagining more just and inclusive worlds through music.

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Deep Routes: Sonic Storytelling of LA’s Underground Music Scenes

Presented by: T-Kay Sangwand (UCLA), Mark McNeill (dublab), Angela Ramirez / Spiñorita (NTS), Martha González (Scripps College)

Deep Routes is a radio series produced by dublab in partnership with Metro Art and with support from Cal Humanities and the Eastside Arts Initiative. Deep Routes explores the fertile and lesser known music histories embedded in the Los Angeles landscape and the transit topographies that connect them. Each episode features a spectrum of voices that dives into the intersecting roots and routes found within the streets, buildings, and neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Since 1999, the internet radio station dublab has played a vital role in Los Angeles’s diverse underground music cultures, incubating many artists both whose work are situated on the fringes of the mainstream as well as those who have achieved critical acclaim. Tapping into its rich networks that span decades, dublab’s Deep Routes has been able to facilitate storytelling that crosses genres and geographies—covering subjects ranging from the indigenous sounds of Los Angeles told by Tongva musicians to revolutionary first generation punk tales, underground ecosystems of electronic beatmaking, and spiritual jazz as the pulse of neighborhood solidarity. This panel will feature a Deep Routes producer, advisor, and episode narrators in conversation about the process of producing the series as well as storytelling in community. The narrators will highlight the electronic music histories born out of immigrant and diasporic communities in the San Gabriel Valley as well as the transnational musical activism of the Grammy-nominated, Afro diasporic, Los Angeles-based group Quetzal.

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Do the Dance: Indie Sleaze, Bloghouse Clubs, and Emo in SoCal

Presented by: Kristen Martinez, UCLA

This paper examines the revival of Emotional Music (Emo) in the early to mid-2000s as a cultural response to hypermasculinity in the music industry, offering youth a vehicle for self-expression through fashion and a means of grappling with broader social issues, including the post-9/11 climate and the housing crisis. This resurgence coincided with the rise of social media platforms such as AIM, LiveJournal, and Myspace, which provided spaces for connection, digital self-fashioning, and the curation of sonic playlists as affective roadmaps. Drawing on Karen Tongson’s concept of “remote intimacies,” Svetlana Boym’s work on nostalgia, and Simon Reynolds’s scholarship on retro and revival in popular music, the project situates emo within a nexus of music, technology, and cultural identity.

The research traces how emo intersected with dance music during the rise of social media and nightlife cultures, with women and LGBTQ+ communities driving its fashion, organization, and grassroots support. It documents the Emo, Indie-Electro, and “Scene” subcultures that thrived in Los Angeles, Echo Park, Riverside, and Hollywood—particularly within communities of color—alongside contemporaneous pop and hip hop movements marked by indulgence and spectacle. Artists such as LMFAO, Kesha, Cobra Starship, Breathe Carolina, and Millionaires shaped a hybrid soundscape that resonated with “scene kids,” while backyard bands in the San Gabriel Valley fused DIY practices with keyboards, synths, and even DVD players to create electro punk.

Pop-up dance events like HEIST, D.A.N.C.E., BANG!, Blue Mondays, and Genre—often described as part of “Bloghouse,” a term popularized by photographer Mark “Cobrasnake” Hunter and author Lina Abascal—functioned as vital escape spaces for youth. Photobooths at these venues became markers of subcultural belonging, with images posted on social media serving as digital footprints that linked youth of color across Southern California. Supplementing documentary records with insider perspectives, this research highlights the central role of Asian American, Latinx, Black, and South Asian youth as DJs, scene models, promoters, and clubbers in shaping emo and dance subcultures, and situates these contributions within broader narratives of race, gender, and cultural production in 2000s nightlife.

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Escuchar al Istmo: Los Angeles Central American Diasporic Music Memory Making

Presented by: Gabriel Vidal, UCLA

This presentation utilizes research based on community radio, DJ, vinyl collecting and oral history practice to explore music preservation and memory work for the Los Angeles Central American community. Founded in 2024 with 20 episodes up to date, Escuchar al Istmo, which translates to Listen to the Isthmus, is a dublab internet radio show and a music memory project for the Central American diaspora. The show highlights the diverse musical landscape of the seven countries, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, through its genres, vinyl records, and special guests. The show highlights history, culture and storytelling and invites community members to curate music that brings them joy, inspiration, and reminds them of their upbringing and Central American identity. Los Angeles being home to the largest Central American diaspora, yet musically underrepresented, continuing the practice of sharing music, the past and present sounds, is critical for the diaspora’s preserved memory and cultural identity here in Los Angeles. Based on the radio project and the vinyl collection of Gabriel Vidal, host of Escuchar al Istmo, the presentation will demonstrate various musical genres throughout Central American history and memory making through sharing music amongst the Central American diaspora. The presentation will include audio and visual displays of vinyl records, excerpts from community member oral histories and discussion around music and community archiving for the Central American diaspora in Los Angeles.

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Nothing Means Nothing Anymore: A Queer Chicana (Re)membering of the Alley Cats' Dianne Chai

Presented by: Marlén Ríos-Hernández, California State University, Fullerton

"Nothing Means Nothing Anymore" is the title of the L.A. first-wave punk band Alley Cats, fronted by Chinese American bassist Dianne Chai. This presentation proposes a queer Chicana interpretation of Chai’s contribution to the early L.A. punk rock scene, a history often overshadowed in accounts of the era, which frequently attribute the scene’s diversity primarily to Latino participants.

The talk connects to the theme of Diasporic Kinships by foregrounding Chai’s role as an Asian American artist whose presence and work intersected with Latinx subcultures. Through a focus on historical redaction, the presentation highlights Chai’s overlooked contributions and situates her within broader narratives of diasporic exchange, cultural hybridity, and subcultural solidarity in Los Angeles punk history.

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Preserving Punk through Community Collaboration: The UCLA Library Punk Archive

Presented by: The UCLA Punk Librarians (Briana Gonzalez, Allie da Silva Srulowitz), UCLA

This presentation focuses on the UCLA Library Punk Archive, with particular emphasis on the collaborative work undertaken with Los Angeles punk communities to preserve and share their history. The archive’s intersectional and intergenerational practices bring together participants in punk scenes to help document, care for, and share materials. Community members are engaged directly through site visits to their spaces, collaborative collection care, and guidance in the processing and description of donated materials. Outreach efforts extend to organizing events such as film screenings, concerts, and workshops that highlight the vibrancy of punk’s past and present.

Community engagement is further advanced through ongoing initiatives like digitization sessions, where punk community members are invited to preserve materials from their personal archives and integrate digital copies into UCLA’s Punk Zines and Ephemera collection. These sessions create opportunities to learn about the materials from their creators, exchange preservation practices, and digitize zines, photographs, videos, audio, and film using UCLA’s facilities.

Current projects exemplify this collaborative approach. Examples include student-led processing of the Jenny Lens and Donna Santisi punk photography collections, digitization of audio interviews from the V. Vale (RE/Search Publications) collection, and site visits to work with personal collections from figures such as Tequila Mockingbird (punk historian and public access television host) and Janet Cunningham (creator of C.A.S.H., a punk casting agency). The archive also facilitates community-building events, such as the Darby Romeo (Ben is Dead) zine fair and the recent Lovedolls Superstar film screening with Dave Markey (1991: The Year Punk Broke), featuring performances from local bands.

The presentation underscores how collaborative archival work can unite past and present generations of punks, and invites the wider community to learn about and participate in the ongoing preservation of punk history.

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Sound of the Diaspora: A California Tour of Independent Kinship & Resistance

Presented by: Seven Bailey, California State University, Northridge

This presentation reflects on the “VOVE on the 5” tour—an independent, student-organized music tour that took place across California in Summer 2025. Guided by the Chair of the Music Industry Studies program at CSUN and faculty advisor for VOVE Records, a group of student artists, producers, and tour managers curated, performed, and managed a grassroots tour spanning multiple cities. The roster featured five artists—Sofistolethemoon, DRO, TRIStar, Cayden, and Aziboh—each carrying a rich cultural background and a sound shaped by their diasporic roots.

The session highlights how the tour evolved from a performance opportunity into a platform for community building, identity reclamation, and sonic resistance. Through genre-fluid performances ranging from Afrobeats and R&B to indie and experimental hip-hop, the artists shared stories of belonging, displacement, and empowerment, often in venues and communities overlooked by the mainstream industry.

This work directly ties into the Diasporic Kinships theme. The kinship formed during the tour was cultural, logistical, emotional, and political. A family was built on the road through collaboration, mutual support, and a shared vision. The DIY nature of the tour required navigation and critique of traditional industry structures, equipping students with the tools to self-curate, self-archive, and advocate for themselves and their communities.

The presentation features contributions from students, including tour footage, performance excerpts, and reflections on how the project served as both an educational milestone and a powerful expression of diasporic connection through music. Collectively, the presenters demonstrate how underground, student-driven music experiences can operate as sites of genuine cultural work—bridging generations, genres, and geographies.

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Sounds like Kinship: New Wave and Community Archiving

Presented by: Thuy Vo Dang, Ph.D., UCLA

What does an underground music movement among refugee and immigrant youth have to do with the preservation of diaspora history decades later? What sounds are legitimized in diaspora communities and what sounds are disavowed? This talk reflects on the work of archiving the sounds and subculture of the Vietnamese diaspora through the documentary film, NEW WAVE, and book by the same name. I suggest that new wave music enabled a form of kinship in the years after surviving war and displacement for refugee youth, and decades later the intentional creation of a community archive around New Wave also enabled another form of kinship for memory workers of the diaspora. 

 

 

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Transcultural Identity Construction in Caribbean Popular Music: A Comparative Analysis of Shenseea and Stefflon Don

Presented by: Holland Rhodd-Lee, UCLA

This paper examines how Caribbean popular music (CPM) functions as a critical site for identity formation within diasporic communities. Drawing on postcolonial and musicological analysis, the study explores how New York City’s Afro-West Indian community engages with Jamaican dancehall and Trinibagonian soca, establishing musical contact zones that both facilitate transcultural dialogue and preserve cultural heritage. While existing scholarship addresses Caribbean American demographics and the cultural influences on musical preferences, the role of music-making as a site for transcultural engagement in U.S.-based Afro-West Indian communities remains underexplored.

To address this gap and investigate how musical experiences mediate cultural adaptation, the analysis integrates Mann’s theory of embodied cognition (2015) and Butterfield’s theory of selective acculturation (2003) into a Pluralized Identity model. Through close readings of two contemporary female dancehall artists, Shenseea and Stefflon Don, and their respective works “Be Good” (2021) and “Clockwork” (2022), the paper argues that their musical practices enable the construction and preservation of cultural identity across transnational boundaries.

By situating these artists within postcolonial and identity politics frameworks, the paper illuminates the complex conditions of CPM production and performance while contributing to broader discussions of diaspora, cultural hybridity, and artistic agency within musicology. The study suggests a conceptualization of cultural identity that foregrounds the role of musical practice in shaping and reflecting Caribbean cultural globalization, while also facilitating complex identity negotiations within diasporic communities. As contemporary popular music increasingly engages with transcultural practices, musicological scholarship that situates these experiences culturally is essential to understanding their social and political dimensions.

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Uncovering Hidden Rhythms: Reimagining the Soundscape of Southern California’s Music History

Presented by: Roberto Viramontes & Paul Morgana, Cal State LA

Los Angeles has long been celebrated as a global entertainment capital—but beyond the bright lights and big names lies a rich, underexplored history of rock and roll and popular music shaped by the people and places of Southern California. Historical Sounscapez, a new podcast project, dives deep into this musical time capsule—tracing the lesser-known stories of young artists, venues, and DIY spaces that helped shape the sound of a generation. What does it really mean to belong to a music scene? What happens when traditional stages and recording studios are off-limits to young, aspiring musicians across greater LA? This presentation explores how local artists, disc jockeys, and music lovers across L.A. reimagined unconventional spaces—backyards, segregated music halls, community centers—as stages for creativity and self-expression. In doing so, they redefined what it meant to make music, build community, and claim cultural space in a city that didn’t always make room for them. Join us as we explore the intersection of music, space, and identity in a vibrant and often overlooked chapter of West Coast music history.

Seven Bailey, California State University, Northridge

Seven A. Bailey is an award-winning music industry professional, educator, and cultural strategist with over 25 years of experience across artist development, touring, production, and higher education. He currently serves as the Endowed Chair of Music Industry Studies at California State University, Northridge, where he leads a dynamic program that bridges academic learning with real-world industry practice.

Bailey’s multifaceted career includes serving as Director of Marketing and A&R at Omnes Records, Tour and Production Manager for major artists through WB Music Group, and Audio Engineer for global events and broadcasts. His technical expertise spans FOH, monitors, RF systems, and advanced live sound technologies. He has worked with top-tier talent including Kendrick Lamar, Rihanna, Terrace Martin, and Lauryn Hill, as well as companies like Apple, Microsoft, and NBC.

In addition to his industry work, Bailey is the founder and Program Director of Camp AAMP'D, a nonprofit youth program using music and performance to empower underserved communities. He has taught at UCLA, CSUDH, Compton College, and the Los Angeles Film School, and is currently pursuing a JD in Entertainment Law. His work champions access, innovation, and culturally grounded education in music and the arts.

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Dr. Nadia Buyse, University of Sussex

Dr. Nadia Buyse is a transdisciplinary artist, musician, and practice-led researcher whose work fuses DIY punk, experimental pop, and conceptual art to explore themes of post-diaspora, transience, and cultural displacement. Over the past two decades, she has started and performed in more than 40 bands, with a practice that has taken her from queer punk venues in San Francisco to the Volksbühne in Berlin, The Roundhouse in London, and international festivals including (d)OCUMENTA, Theater der Welt, WienWoche, and the Liverpool Arab Arts Festival. She is currently a member of the UK-based supergroup Snoozers with Jon Slade (Huggy Bear) and Steve Dore (Casual Dots), and has shared stages with Bikini Kill, The Raincoats, The Gossip, EMA, and other punk icons.

Her performances often take place in unconventional or contested spaces—from Hard Rock Cafés in Georgia to queer bars in San Francisco—reflecting the cultural adaptability and resistance that animate her practice. She holds a PhD in Critical and Creative Practice from the University of Sussex, where her research examined punk as a methodology for post-diasporic cultural survival. She currently supervises research at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and serves as Undergraduate Programmes Manager at the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance.

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Cris Avitia Camacho, UCLA

Cris Avitia Camacho (they/them) is an undergraduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, triple-majoring in Chicana/o and Central American Studies, Labor Studies, and Gender Studies. They are a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, Spanish Editor for La Gente Newsmagazine, and Internal Education & Research Co-Director for COMPAS, a student-led farmworker advocacy organization. Their research spans labor, migration, gender, sexuality, and cultural production, with current projects examining how Latine and queer participants in Los Angeles’ goth and alternative nightlife reclaim club spaces as sites of belonging, resistance, and community. They also co-lead research on farmworker justice, including UCLA Dining’s food sourcing practices, and assist on a dissertation project on barriers to prenatal care among agricultural workers in California’s Central Valley. Committed to bridging scholarship and activism, Cris plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Anthropology, Gender Studies, Latinx Studies, or Performance Studies to expand mentorship and access for underrepresented students in academia.

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Martha Gonzalez, Scripps College

Martha Gonzalez is a Chicana artivista (artist/activist) musician and Associate Professor in the Intercollegiate Department of Chicana/o Latina/o Studies at Scripps College. Born and raised in Boyle Heights, Gonzalez has received various fellowships including a Fulbright Garcia-Robles, Ford Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson, USA Fellowship as well as the MacArthur Fellowship in 2022. Her academic interests are fueled by her own musicianship as a singer/songwriter and percussionist for Grammy Award winning band Quetzal. The album “Puentes Sonoros” (Sonic Bridges) was released on Smithsonian Folkways in the fall of 2020. Gonzalez and her partner Quetzal Flores have been instrumental in catalyzing the transnational dialogue between Chicanx/Latinx communities in the U.S and Jarocho communities in Veracruz, Mexico and have been active in implementing the collective songwriting method in correctional facilities throughout the U.S. Most recently, Gonzalez’s tarima (stomp box) and zapateado dance shoes were acquired by the National Museum of American History and are on permanent display in the “One Nation Many Voices” exhibit. Gonzalez’s first manuscript Chican@ Artivistas: Music, Community, and Transborder Tactics in East Los Angeles was published by the University of Texas Press in 2020. Gonzalez currently serves as the Scripps Humanities Institute Director.

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Angie Louie, UC Riverside/Cal State LA

Angie Louie is a psychology graduate student at Cal State LA conducting thesis research on alternative subculture identity, well-being, and social connection. Her academic and professional interests include research, teaching, counseling, art therapy, and community-based work such as creating maker’s markets.

Growing up navigating feelings of otherness and mental health challenges, she found inspiration in the emo subculture, particularly its confessional lyrics and openness to mental health dialogue. As an undergraduate at UC Riverside, she founded Alt’s Not Dead, a student organization dedicated to studying alternative subcultures and providing a safe space for creative expression through collaborative art projects. She has continued this activism through her jewelry business, Post-Teen Angst, which features characters with hollow eyes and black hearts as symbolic representations of her own mental health journey and appreciation for emo culture.

Outside of her academic and creative work, Angie enjoys thrifting, attending concerts, and spending time with her cats.

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Kristen Martinez, UCLA

TBA

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Mark “Frosty” McNeill, dublab

Mark “Frosty” McNeill is a DJ, radio producer, writer, curator, university professor, and Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker based in Los Angeles. He’s the founder of dublab.com, a pioneering web radio station that has been exploring wide-spectrum music since 1999. McNeill’s work is focused on experimenting with broadcast formats, broadening perspectives on music culture, and sharing transcendent sonic experiences. McNeill serves as a Creative Producer for the LA Phil where he focuses on expanding sound awareness and deepening music experiences. Frosty hosts Celsius Drop, a monthly dublab radio show and has produced long-running programs for Red Bull Radio, Marfa Public Radio, and KPFK 90.7 FM. He has also produced many acclaimed album projects for Light in the Attic Records including the three volume Pacific Breeze: Japanese City Pop, AOR & Boogie series, Somewhere Between: Mutant Pop, Electronic Minimalism & Shadow Sounds of Japan 1980-1988, Even the Forest Hums: Ukrainian Sonic Archives 1971-1996, and the forthcoming A La Altura: Visionary Mexican Music 1977-1999.

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Paul Morgana, Cal State LA

Paul Morgana is a first-generation U.S.-born member of an immigrant family from Bolivia, proudly born in Boyle Heights. He was raised throughout the greater Los Angeles area—before his family ultimately settled in South Gate. While Southeast L.A. became home, he spent his formative junior high and high school years in East Los Angeles, graduating from Garfield High School. It was during his senior year that he began playing drums and joined his first band, sparking a lifelong passion for music. He went on to attend UC Santa Cruz, where he studied history and education. During his junior year, Paul studied abroad in England, became an on-air DJ for the university’s radio station, and joined a band performing covers of artists like Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails. After college, Paul pursued a career in education, teaching 12th-grade Government and Economics for fifteen years. Throughout his teaching career, his involvement in music remained strong—performing, recording, and touring across the Southwest with multiple bands and collaborating with musicians from diverse genres. Paul’s dual passions for history and music have shaped his understanding of the cultural and societal impact of sound. He continues to perform, collaborate, and remains committed to lifelong learning and creative exchange.

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Angela Ramirez / Spiñorita, NTS

Spiñorita is a Los Angeles-based DJ and producer with a 15-year career that’s made her a staple in both local and international music scenes. A Chicana born and raised in the San Gabriel Valley, her eclectic sound — blending House, Funk, Disco, and soulful grooves — draws from her upbringing at backyard parties, where her love for music first took shape. She’s played major festivals like Coachella, Bonnaroo, Movement Detroit, and Future Sounds of Jazz and toured with La Roux. Her global reach includes sets in Amsterdam, London, and Japan. Spiñorita’s passion for community runs deep — she founded Backyard Party Records, blending Oldies Lowrider music with Drum n Bass, and is a dedicated leader in criminal justice art rehabilitation, teaching DJing to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated youth and adults across California through the non-profit Give a Beat. Spiñorita’s ten-year NTS radio show Casual Play has been a cornerstone of her career, with additional sets featured on DirtyBird Radio, Dublab, VANS Channel 66, and more. Her work has been spotlighted in Forbes, Vogue US, and HYPEBEAST.

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Holland Rhodd-Lee, UCLA

Holland Rhodd-Lee is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Musicology in the Herb Albert School of Music at UCLA. He graduated from Wellesley College with a B.A. in Neuroscience and Music with departmental honors in music and received his Masters degree in Musicology from UCLA. His work has garnered several awards including the Lise Waxer Undergraduate Writing Prize from the Northeast Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology (2018); the Wellesley College Billings Academic Award in Music for his undergraduate thesis, “Social Modes of Listening: How Racial Identity and Music Shape Hook-up Culture at Same-Sex Colleges” (2019) — later published in the Ethnomusicology Review (2022). His dissertation examines how Afro-West Indians in New York City construct hybridized identities through their engagement with Caribbean popular music as a transcultural medium, enabled by embodied cognition and selective acculturation.

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Marlén Ríos-Hernández, California State University, Fullerton

Dr. Marlén Rios-Hernández is an Associate Professor in Chicana and Chicano Studies at California State University, Fullerton. Her research specializes in policing, genealogies, and representations of Southern California punk culture in the post-COINTELPRO era, with a focus on the narratives of Black and Brown femme and women punks. Her work has been published in Sounding Out!, Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, and The Oxford Handbook of Punk Rock.

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T-Kay Sangwand, UCLA

T-Kay Sangwand is a Certified Archivist, librarian, and DJ who specializes in building preservation partnerships for human rights documentation and cultural heritage materials, particularly in Latin America and the US. She holds a MLIS and MA in Latin American Studies from UCLA and is currently the Librarian for Digital Collection Development at UCLA. In 2017, she was named a Fulbright Specialist in Library and Information Science and in 2018-2019, she was a Fulbright Scholar with Mexico’s Ministry of Culture. She is currently a resident DJ at the LA-based radio station dublab where she hosts her monthly program “The Archive of Feelings.”

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Gabriel Vidal, UCLA

Gabriel Vidal, dublab radio - Escuchar al Istmo, gfunktrece@gmail.com // Gabriel aka gfunktrece grew up in the San Fernando Valley with family roots from El Salvador. Counterculture, community organizing and his family refugee experience has shaped his relationship to music. As a DJ and record collector, Gabriel finds importance in preserving music from marginalized communities and music's role in empowering people. He is the host of Escuchar al Istmo, a monthly dublab show focused on the music and stories of the Central American LA community and is a co-founding member of a Salvadoran music memory project called Radio Pulgarcito.

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UCLA Library Punk Archive

The UCLA Library Punk Collective was started in 2013 and includes library staff, audiovisual archivists, archivists, catalogers, students, faculty, and community members. The collective documents the development and expression of punk by collecting and preserving the materials of the people and organizations that comprise punk culture throughout Los Angeles County from the mid-1970s to the present, with a focus on communities of color, feminist punks, queer punks, riot grrrls, and punks with disabilities. Within these communities, genres of interest include Afro-punk, queercore, Chicanx/Latinx punk, art-punk, straight edge, hardcore, avant-garde, experimental punk, and beyond. The UCLA Library Punk Collective works collaboratively with our punk communities, including musicians, photographers, filmmakers, promoters, producers, record labels, artists, writers, venues, spaces, and fans. It is our mission to inspire and facilitate the discovery and research of punk culture through access to the archives, outreach efforts, and programming.

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Roberto Viramontes, Cal State LA

Roberto Viramontes is the Executive Director of the Fairplex Learning and Development Center (FLDC), an educational nonprofit organization in Pomona. FLDC offers a wide range of programs, including early care and education, arts education, career technical education, and youth engagement initiatives for opportunity youth. However, Roberto first began his career in education began as a high school social science teacher, where he taught U.S. History and U.S. Government. As a graduate student in History at Cal State LA, Roberto developed projects centered on music history podcasts, exploring themes such as the reimagined spaces that supported the growth of LA musicians in 1980s and 1990s, as well as the complex, symbiotic relationship between narco culture and popular music in Mexico. Roberto is a proud East Los Angeles native and graduate of local public schools, including Garfield High School. He holds a B.A. in History from California State University, Fullerton, and has earned multiple advanced degrees: a Master’s in History from California State University, Los Angeles; a Master of Public Policy from the University of Southern California; and a Master’s in Education from Loyola Marymount University.