SamTrans Art on Buses: Stand Against Racism, Love our Communities

On April 7, 2021 the SamTrans Board adopted its first resolution addressing diversity, equity and inclusion.

SamTrans Resolution

Standing Against Racism

SamTrans condemns the number of hate crimes against members of our community. To send a message that racism and hate will not be tolerated, SamTrans, along with the Millbrae Anti-Racist Coalition, collaborated with three artists to send a message of unity.

Bios

Vida K -Instagram
 

Vida Kuang is a visual artist based in San Francisco, who was raised by a Toisan matriarch on the streets of Chinatown. As a visual storyteller, her work centers on healing as experienced by Asian women, intergenerational joy and lived experiences of poor/working class peoples. Her art practice is inspired by movements led by women of color for racial, gender and economic justice. Vida’s work addresses the complexities and intersections of survival, healing and memory. She uses audio, illustration and mixed media as tools for storytelling. Vida believes storytelling is one of the most fundamental ways to decolonize herself and her communities’ hearts and minds for collective liberation.

LeUyen Pham
 

LeUyen Pham is the award-winning and critically acclaimed illustrator of more than one hundred books for children. LeUyen (pronounced Lay-Win) is the New York Times bestselling illustrator of the Julianne Moore’s picture book series, Freckleface Strawberry, Kelly DiPucchio’s picture book Grace for President, and Shannon and Dean Hale’s middle grade series Princess in Black. LeUyen is also the illustrator of God’s Dream by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Alvin Ho series by Lenore Look, the Vampirina Ballerina picture book series by Anne Marie Pace, and The Boy Who Loved Math by Deborah Heiligman. Her more recent books include Caldecott Honor Book Bear Came Along by Richard Morris and her self-authored Outside, Inside, a recollection of our year in lockdown.

LeUyen is the author and illustrator of Big Sister Little Sister, There’s No Such Thing as Little, A Piece of Cake, All the Things I Love About You, and The Bear Who Wasn’t There. She has also contributed to the Piggy and Elephant Like Reading! book series with her book The Itchy Book. She is also the co-creator, along with Shannon Hale, of the groundbreaking bestselling graphic memoirs Real Friends and Best Friends.

Born in Vietnam, LeUyen and her family fled Vietnam in the final days of the Vietnam War. Growing up in Southern California, LeUyen always loved to doodle and draw, but her mother insisted she become a lawyer. For two years, LeUyen attended UCLA, where she majored in political science. Fortunately, the head of the art department spotted her artistic talent and helped her change course. LeUyen got an interview at the prestigious Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, won a scholarship to pay the tuition, and spent the next three years in an accelerated program and earned a degree in illustration. Following school, LeUyen worked as a layout artist for DreamWorks Feature Animation, and illustrated books on the side. Her first picture book was Can You Do This, Old Badger? and was written by Eve Bunting.

These days, LeUyen lives in Los Angeles with her husband Alex (who is also an artist), and their two adorable sons, Adrien and Leo. She also has a cat named Sardine and a gecko named Kumquat. She adores traveling and speaking, but given her way would spend all her time making Star Wars-themed birthday cakes.

You can learn more about LeUyen by visiting her on Instagram, @uyenloseordraw, or on her website leuyenpham.com.

Eli Africa
 

Eli Africa is a multimedia artist living in El Cerrito, California. He earned his Bachelors of FineArts degree in Visual Communications from the University of the Philippines in Diliman, and aMaster of Arts degree in Multimedia Communications from the Academy of Art University in SanFrancisco.Eli was born in San Bernardino, Calif. to Filipino immigrant parents. When his father retiredfrom the U.S. Army, he immigrated to the Philippines with his family and lived there until hegraduated from college. Upon moving back to California, he landed visual art jobs as afreelancer and worked in art production houses. During one of his trips back to the Philippines,he was invited to teach at his alma mater, the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts,where he taught freshmen and sophomore students for five years.

Soon after he got married and started a family, he moved back to California with his wife andtwo kids, and started from scratch all over again. Drawing faces was something he did for fun asa young art student. In fact, one of his first gigs upon returning to California was drawingcaricatures on San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf. He has since worked with the Bay AreaDiscovery Museum, Children’s Creativity Museum, Asian Pacific Fund, Youth Speaks, theExploratorium, de Young Museum and the University of California, Santa Cruz Extension. Eli isnow a freelancer creating assets for print, short-form video, and the web.To see more of his work, visit elicreates.com