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Nicole Salaver, Part 2 (S7E3)

Storied: San Francisco

Release Date: 11/19/2024

Sharing Stories: Keoni Washington (S7 bonus) show art Sharing Stories: Keoni Washington (S7 bonus)

Storied: San Francisco

This bonus episode is presented in collaboration with the Chronicle Season of Sharing Fund. ​ gave some peace of mind to aspiring boxing champ Keoni Washington, who became parent and breadwinner to his brothers after their mother passed  away early in the pandemic. We meet him at the East Bay apartment he shares with three of his brothers.  Keoni received rental assistance from Season of Sharing Fund in 2023, which has allowed him and his brothers to stay in their home. If you want to hear more profiles of help and hope, go to . And if you want to find out how you can...

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Frameline Film Fest's Allegra Madsen, Part 2 (S7E4) show art Frameline Film Fest's Allegra Madsen, Part 2 (S7E4)

Storied: San Francisco

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1. Allegra was bartending at Second City in Chicago. The day of her graduation ceremony, at Columbia College Chicago, she packed up all her belongings and drove to LA with a friend.   Allegra really wanted to be in California. Not yet totally sure about what she was gonna do, she took the plunge, so to speak. She'd realized that she wasn't going to pursue art. But she figured, correctly, that in addition to the warmer climate, there would be opportunities to seize in Los Angeles. But Allegra soon found that the challenges of a pre-smartphone...

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Frameline Film Fest's Allegra Madsen, Part 1 (S7E4) show art Frameline Film Fest's Allegra Madsen, Part 1 (S7E4)

Storied: San Francisco

Allegra Madsen has a Polaroid photo of her birth. In this episode, meet and get to know Allegra. Today, she's the executive director of  film fest, the biggest LGBTQIA+ movie event in the world. She might disagree, but Allegra is a big deal. (Quick side note: As we kicked off our recording, Allegra expertly solved a Rubik's Cube. No bigs.) We begin with the story of how her parents met. Allegra's dad is from Chicago originally. He taught transcendental meditation (TM) and moved all over the world. Eventually, he landed in Virginia, where he met Allegra's mom, who is from there...

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Jacob Rosenberg and the Bay Area Hip-Hop + Skateboarding Scenes of the Nineties (S7 bonus) show art Jacob Rosenberg and the Bay Area Hip-Hop + Skateboarding Scenes of the Nineties (S7 bonus)

Storied: San Francisco

Jacob Rosenberg had a front-row seat to some rad SF/Bay Area history. In this bonus episode, the filmmaker/storyteller shares some of that history, especially as it relates to his upcoming book, Right Before My Eyes. Jacob was born and raised in Palo Alto. He grew up in the Seventies and Eighties. His parents moved there from the East Coast and Midwest to raise kids in an environment that matched their liberal values more. He started skating in the Eighties and would visit Justin Herman Plaza/EMB in The City with his skateboard but also his camera. He was one of the first to capture the...

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Nicole Salaver, Part 2 (S7E3) show art Nicole Salaver, Part 2 (S7E3)

Storied: San Francisco

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1, with Nicole's move to New York. She didn't necessarily have a plan for this cross-country relocation, but she dove in head-first nonetheless.   Nicole of course turned to Craigslist to help her find a roommate. But she also hopped on FB Marketplace, which is where she eventually found someone. She moved in with an old friend from theater to an apartment in East Harlem on 125th Street.   She considers her time in NYC "epic." She learned a lot, she grew up, she did laundry in the snow ... character-building, all of it. She...

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Nicole Salaver, Part 1 (S7E3) show art Nicole Salaver, Part 1 (S7E3)

Storied: San Francisco

​Nicole Salaver is the kind of person I wish I had met long before that happened. In this episode, meet Nicole. She's the program manager at  these days. But her San Francisco roots go way, way back. Her maternal grandfather came to the US in the 1920s. He was one of the first Filipinos to own a restaurant and pool hall in Manilatown (please see our episode on ). He was a manong who lived at the International Hotel. Stories that Nicole's mom has told her were that he was more or less a mobster, paying off cops to keep his place safe. Nicole's maternal grandmother came...

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D9 Supervisor Candidate Jackie Fielder, Part 2 (S7E2) show art D9 Supervisor Candidate Jackie Fielder, Part 2 (S7E2)

Storied: San Francisco

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1.   Jackie considers it an honor to have worked for Lateefah Simon, who's running for Congress in the East Bay for the seat currently held by Barbara Lee. Jackie was tasked with writing memos, and she took that job and ran with it, digging deeply into the weeds of policy. What she found in the existing systems of that time piqued her curiosity around what it might mean if she herself were to enter the fray. Her life up to that point formed her world views, as these things tend to do. But the policies, she says, ticked her off.   She...

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Storied: San Francisco

is quick to credit her ancestors with her life and where she is now that she's 30. In this episode, meet Jackie, who's running to be the next District 9 supervisor. District 9 includes the Mission, Bernal Heights, and the Portola. She begins by sharing the life story of her maternal grandparents, who are from Monterey in Mexico. Her grandfather worked in orange groves in Southern California, while her grandmother was a home care worker. She also did stints at See's Candies seasonally. Sadly, both grandparents passed away when Jackie was young. But she learned more about them as she grew up....

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SF Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, Part 2 (S7E1) show art SF Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, Part 2 (S7E1)

Storied: San Francisco

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1. Aaron talks about volunteering at a nonprofit in The City called the Trust for Public Land, where he learned about land acquisition for parks and open spaces. Through that gig, he got a paid internship and eventually, a job. In fact, he met Nancy, the woman he would later marry, there. He eventually moved into Nancy's apartment in North Beach, his first apartment in SF. The move came shortly after the couple visited Nepal to climb in the Himalayas. It was October 1989, when the Loma Prieta earthquake happened.   We fast-forward to 2000,...

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SFFILM's Doc Stories 2024 w/Jessie Fairbanks (S7 Bonus) show art SFFILM's Doc Stories 2024 w/Jessie Fairbanks (S7 Bonus)

Storied: San Francisco

Around this time last year, I covered my first film festival, SFFILM's Doc Stories. The screenings and other events all took place at The Vogue Theater, which is just a short walk from where I live. Long story short, I was hooked. Since then, I've covered SFFILM's International Film Festival, , and  this year. And so I wasn't going to pass up a chance to speak again with Director of Programming at SFFILM Jessie Fairbanks. In this bonus episode, Jessie talks about this year's Doc Stories, the 10th such festival that SFFILM has put on to celebrate documentary...

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In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1, with Nicole's move to New York. She didn't necessarily have a plan for this cross-country relocation, but she dove in head-first nonetheless.
 
Nicole of course turned to Craigslist to help her find a roommate. But she also hopped on FB Marketplace, which is where she eventually found someone. She moved in with an old friend from theater to an apartment in East Harlem on 125th Street.
 
She considers her time in NYC "epic." She learned a lot, she grew up, she did laundry in the snow ... character-building, all of it. She came to hate winter, being a California girl and all. But she auditioned, worked as a waitress and bartender, and had a few other jobs. She made it onto New Amsterdam and Law and Order. At this point in the recording, thanks to my dorking about Nicole being the first guest of this podcast to have also appeared on Law and Order, we talk about that long-running TV show.
 
There was also an "industrial sitcom" where Nicole played a lead character. Today, it is used to teach people around the world to speak English. Thanks to this and her own world travels, she gets recognized abroad.
 
After nearly 10 years, she returned to The Bay, around the time of the pandemic. Part of it was COVID, but also, she feels that the Hollywood myth had been demystified. Nicole arrived at a new perspective on the industry, one that felt exploitative. And so she came home.
 
Because Nicole and I recorded before Election Day, we go on a sidebar about what we thought might happen if you-know-who won. It's interesting to hear our chat about that from here. But I left it in for posterity, if for no other reason.
 
Nicole's husband got COVID while they were still in New York. It was early in the pandemic, and NYC got hit hard. He wasn't able to go to the hospital, and so Nicole masked the fuck up and took care of her partner. She avoided contracting the new disease. He recovered, but it made her think of what could happen if one of their parents got it. That informed their decision to return to California. They were able to get on one of the last flights out of New York in April 2020.
 
Once she got back home, she regrouped. It was still early during the shutdown and no one was shooting anything. She meditated, hiked, and cleaned her mom's house. In doing so, Nicole found a file cabinet full of her grandma's letters, including those from her time spent living in a San Francisco brothel. Her grandmother, Estrella Chavez, wrote about that time as well as her own ancestors, and Nicole was blown away.
 
She discovered that the California State Assembly had named her grandma the first Filipina-American to do activism and cultural work in San Francisco. She was also recognized by Willie Brown when he was mayor.
 
Around this time, she was also learning more about the uncle who gave her that camera—Patrick Salaver—and his work in the Civil Rights movement. Patrick was involved with the Third World Liberation Front that brought together many different ethnic student groups at SF State, including Filipinos.
 
Discovering all this family heritage made Nicole focus on her own legacy. She had gotten into producing events for the Filipino community in South of Market. She was rolling. But then, she got pregnant. With a kid on the way, Nicole realized she needed a job. And that's how she got work as program manager at Balay Kreative.
 
One idea she brought to her new job was starting a podcast to help amplify the stories of her community. Cultural Kultivators podcast serves to share Southeast Asian voices and stories and push the culture forward. Find it on Instagram and on all the podcast platforms.
 
Also, please follow Kindred Kapwa, Nicole's production company. Learn more about her "Patrick Salaver Project," the life story of her uncle.
 
We end the podcast with Nicole's take on this season's theme: Keep It Local.
 
Photography by Mason J.