Photo Credit: Adam Ogard

SARA YUKIMOTO-SALTMAN

Sara Yukimoto-Saltman (she|they) is a queer, mixed-race, Asian-American, Nisei Japanese and Anti-Zionist Jewish facilitator, educator, and artist supporting individuals and groups striving towards anti-oppressive and values-aligned practices. Sara’s childhood born and raised with class privilege as an Asian settler in Honolulu, Hawai’i, on unceded Kānaka Maoli land, fortified her lifelong commitment to dismantling systems of white supremacy.

Sara first cut her teeth as a student organizer in St. Paul, Minnesota, rallying around the retention of adjunct faculty and staff of color. Since then, Sara has spent the last decade engaged in political education, organizing, and facilitation work in various settings including non-hierarchical collectives, base building organizations, worker-owned cooperatives and schools. Her many years as a facilitator and educator have honed Sara’s ability to craft engaging learning environments that support others to find alignment between their daily living and their deep political commitments. Sara is currently a coop member with Guiding Threads Collective, and a trainer with AORTA, the Anti-Oppression Resource and Training Alliance and the Organizing Center. Her approach to facilitation combines warmth and rigor as she supports individuals and organizations through transformation. Her organizing experiences have deepened her interest in supporting other groups to create values-aligned, strong, and sustainable internal structures that support their own visions.

As an artist, Sara has varied artistic practices spanning dance, visual art, and most recently digital art. As a graphic recorder, Sara utilizes artistic recordings as a tool for political learning and consciousness building. She believes that art can propel consciousness building through captivating visual storytelling.

Sara currently lives in Oakland, California on unceded Ohlone Land.

APPROACH

STRONG POWER ANALYSIS

I bring an intersectional analysis to understanding systems of oppression. My approach is attentive to racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, ableism and other systems of oppression, and attuned to how these systems are experienced by individuals navigating the world.

ATTENTION TO INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE TRANSFORMATION

My approach is undergirded by a belief that individual and collective transformation is possible and necessary for us to build the world we imagine. I believe that supporting and affirming individuals as they engage in transformation through political learning has a net positive effect on communities and our movement ecologies.

COLLABORATIVE

My approach honors the wisdom in the room, and relies on each of us to move through conversations, conflict, and change. In learning spaces where I am a facilitator, participants are affirmed for the knowledge and perspectives they bring to the table.

TAILORED TO SPECIFIC NEEDS

My approach is deeply attuned to a group’s preferences, goals, and pre-existing norms and style. I design tailored facilitation experiences that provide multiple entry points to join in the conversation, and I attend to the many ways people process information.

Without Black women, there would be no American cuisine…we are the hands that created how we eat and what we eat today.” -@cheftiffanirozier. This graphic recording is from a conversation between Tiffani Rozier and Dr. Tina Lunsford, who
This graphic recording hosted by Interrupting Criminalization and the National Network of Abortion Funds details a conversation between Erin Grant, Imara Jones, Oriaku Njoku, and Paris Hatcher. Panelists urged us to broaden the ways we are thinking a
“Where the sacredness of water is prioritized over the profits of war, where prisons do not exist, and where healing support is readily available for communities harmed by policing, slavery, settler colonialism, and US imperialism.” 💧🪔?
These three graphic recordings describe the small group conversations facilitated by youth organizers V with #copsoutcps, Keith at Make the Road NYC and the Urban Youth Collaborative, and Sydney at Peer Defense Project (Integrate NYC). The three faci
I feel grateful to have participated in @ggenyc’s Police Free Schools Teach-In. Prior to the youth-led panels, @ggenyc grounded us in the lineage of Black women organizers of the Civil Rights Movement. Here is a tribute graphic recording from t
The incredible people at @ggenyc have put together a resource: 12 Reasons to Support Police Free Schools. This toolkit is for NYC school communities, and can be used by educators and young people to envision and build towards a world where police do
This graphic recording depicts a conversation about the short story ‘Rememory,’ by Waildah Imarisha in the ‘Black Freedom Beyond Borders’ anthology. If you’d like to read the story…https://www.sksm.edu/wp-content/
I have such deep gratitude for the political education space @nikkeiuprising has offered Nikkei folks, like myself, to learn about abolition as a pathway to our collective liberation. 🙏🏻💛✨Thank you. . . Repost from @nikkeiuprising: Last reflection
‘The Big 5’ are the 5 largest weapon manufacturing companies in the US. This includes Lockhead Martin, the world’s largest weapon manufacturer, and Raytheon, which in the last decade, has had $4 billion dollars worth of contracts wi