ABOUT ME
tiny (lisa) gray-garcia aka “PovertySkola” is a formerly unhoused, incarcerated, revolutionary journalist, lecturer, poet, visionary, teacher and single mama of Tiburcio, daughter of a houseless, disabled mama Dee, and the co-founder of POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE/PoorNewsNetwork. With her Mama Dee- she co-founded Escuela de la gente/PeopleSkool- a poor and indigenous people-led skool, as well as several cultural and theatre projects such as the Po Poets Project/Poetas POBREs Proyecto (co-founded with Leroy Moore), welfareQUEENs, the Theatre of the POOR/Teatro de los pobres, and Hotel Voices. In 2011 she co-launched The Homefulness Project - a landless peoples, self-determined land liberation movement in the Ohlone/Lisjan/Huchuin territory known as Deep East Oakland, the Bank of ComeUnity Reparations and co-founded a liberation school for children, Deecolonize Academy and is the creator of a PoemCast from a poverty skola- a podcast series and as well is the co-host of Po Peoples Radio News Hour on PNNKEXU 96.1fm and bi-weekly on KPFA.
Tiny has taught Poverty Scholarship, the criminalization of poverty and poor people led liberation, poetry and media at universities and encampments across Mama Earth including Columbia and UC Berkeley. She has authored several essays for The SF Bay View Newspaper, 48 Hills and POOR Magazine as well as books including Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America, co-editor of A Decolonizers Guide to A Humble Revolution, Born & Raised in Frisco and co-author of Poverty ScholarShip - Poor People Theory, Arts, words and Tears Across Mama Earth, How to Not Call PoLice Ever, Po Peoples Survival Guide Through Covid 19 and the Virus of Poverty and the Homefulness Handbook- How to Build a Homeless, Landless peoples solution to homelessness. She also authored two bi-lingual childrens books: The Hardworker/El Trabajador Fuerte and When Mama and Me Lived Outside - one families journey thru homelessness (which has become an award winning animated short movie of the same name) and The Sidewalk Motel - poems and Poshunary from a poverty skola which was released in 2022.
Reference Letters
Reference #1
I highly recommend Lisa (Tiny) Gray-Garcia's PeopleSkool seminars - and/or any speaking/performing engagement with Lisa and POOR Magazine - for any institution or group that is looking to undertake a meaningful exploration of the marginalization of people based on race, class, disabilities, age, and other issues. As a formerly homeless person who "got out" and went on to do undergraduate work in philosophy at Yale and then a J.D. at UConn Law, I can say that the work that POOR Magazine is doing is nothing short of revolutionary. We've all seen the lives of homeless and other poverty-stricken members of our society characterized as being "invisible," but this is not accurate. These people are not invisible; we all see - and then pretend as if we did or can not see - them, as we all keep moving and going on with our days. The PeopleSkool vignettes bring the unseen realities of this growing population to life - and they give every participant the opportunity to explore and consider the moral, ethical and humane questions of how we are responding to this reality - both personally as well as at the societal level. No one who participates in a PeopleSkool seminar will leave unchanged.
~ Valerie Klokow
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Other Letters of Reference
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