Numerous musicians use their art to paint a historical context of their cultural backgrounds – the struggles and triumphs that their ancestors, past and emerging, have experienced. Just as books and novels are used to depict stories and folktales, similarly, songs can be storytelling devices that use lyrical imagery and melody to tell a tale.

Elena Rodriguez-DePaul joins us to acknowledge some of the artists from our history, and presently who use song as a form of storytelling and activism in the fight for Civil Rights and bring further awareness to the Indigenous peoples who have experienced genocide.

Elena is a diversity consultant, antiracist educator, trauma informed yoga teacher, and mother. Elena is a cisgender, neurotypical, mixed-race, immigrant woman who was born in Caracas, Venezuela, occupied land from the Arawak peoples that stand before cultural erasure to this day. She currently resides in Tewksbury, MA, unceded territories of the Massachusett, Pawtucket and Agawam Nations that are still resisting colonization.