QCP #015 | New Filipino American Folk Tales of Daly City #002 | Tudor Atienza

14-03-2022 • 1 hr 26 mins

A mushroom cloud - like the ones you see from a distance after a volcanic eruption or a nuclear explosion, is caused by the process scientifically described in the Rayleigh-Taylor Instability (RTI).

I don’t intend and am highly unqualified to describe in scientific detail what happens during an RTI. But my understanding (based on what I've found on the interwebs) uses the everyday example of what you see when trying to mix oil and water.

Water - the lighter fluid in density based on the Earth's gravity will always be below the oil, a much denser fluid that will always float to the surface.

Let's imagine a physical model of this process by inverting the liquids in two separate jars. Oil in the bottom jar, water at the top. In between the jars, we add a removable barrier between them.

Once we remove the barrier we should see, in slow motion, the oil pushing to the surface. The oil pushing up from the water, and into the surface will create a mushroom-shaped movement. Some would argue, that moves similar to the wax in a lava lamp or pouring cream into your morning cup of coffee.

In the same way, we saw fidget spinners, Pokemon go, and hoverboards in recent memory - a similar explosion in the 80s and 90s gave us breakdancing. Dance styles like the uprock, popping, and strutting, started regionally in the 70s by kids in the Black and Latino communities in the burrows of New York, and cities all over California. Over time, they all evolved and melded together to what the world widely knows now as breakdancing. Breakdancing will be an official event of the Paris Olympic games in 2024.

The more conversations I have with people from different walks of life, the more I see that all of us have unique outlets of expression. Especially as youths, to gain a semblance of control for what can feel, at times, like an uncontrollable reality. The magnetic pull to immerse ourselves in something like breakdancing, that connects us with a community. To express what might be challenging to put into words through movement.

We all have our own version of this.

In this conversation, we welcome back Tudor Atienza, a good friend and guest from episode 007, Dazed and Confused in Daly City. Today, he’s a loving husband, father of two girls, and a hardworking manager for one of San Francisco's transportation branches.

He is where he is today because he overcame a troubled childhood. Losing his mother at an early age, bullying, and much more with what we will unpack together in this and future episodes.

San Francisco has always been known as the home to countless cultural movements, tech innovations, and one of the most expensive places in the world to live. But stories of hardworking, struggling, lesser-known cultures and communities deserve just as much of a platform as the CEOs and cultural figures that we've often heard any and everywhere throughout history.

It’s a story about the children of immigrants like the Filipinos in Daly City and all over the Bay Area, that latched on to an artform that is equally wild, dynamic, and innovative. A story of how a movement spread across the globe without the help of Youtube and masterclass tutorials. And a story about how regular kids from all over the world can come together and work as hard as any world-class gymnast to contort their bodies, expand and string together seemingly impossible moves that appear to suspend them above ground.

An art form all within the moments that the DJ and breakbeat loop allows, feel a bit more than human. An art form where a battle isn’t settled with detonating bombs, but the eruption you get from the crowd, it seems, with the energy simply made from the style you create from the dynamic movement of the human body.

Welcome back, Tudor Atienza!

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