FAQ
Q. HOW CAN I purchase a copy of the magazine?
A. You can purchase your own printed copy of the magazine here.
Q. Why is it that price?
A. As a reminder, there is no profit being made from printed magazine sales. The digital version of the magazine is free to be more accessible to folks. A printed copy is for those who would like to invest in a tangible version of the publication. The production is through a third party printer, Mag Cloud, so all production printing fees go straight to them to create the magazine. No one from the Brown Papaya team receives any profit.
Q. I have questions regarding shipping!
A. The printing company, Mag Cloud, takes care of shipping products to customers. If you have any questions regarding their website, shipping/handling, etc. please contact Mag Cloud’s Help page here.
Q. HOW CAN I support & DONATE?
A. At this time, we are only accepting donations through the Venmo app. You can send donations to @unconventionalbliss with the caption "brown papaya". Thank you for your support!
Q. IF I DONATE MONEY, WHERE DOES THAT MONEY GO?
A. All donations will be used only for the Brown Papaya project purposes. There is a monthly fee to keep the website running, a monthly fee for Adobe design software to create the magazine itself, and a fee to own the domain name. All donations will never be for profit, only to be used for making sure Brown Papaya is free and accessible to everyone.
Q. were these photos edited?
A. Yes, our photo editor, Vianca Natividad, edited the photos you see throughout Brown Papaya to bring them to their highest potential. She added contrast, saturation, negated reflected colors from surrounding backgrounds (nature, clothes) by adding in the opposite color to neutralize (ie. Add red to skin to negate green cast), sharpened/masked to accentuate focus since cameras pick up everything, added light or shadow when lighting conditions were really harsh. She adjusted tone curve in order to give more contrast, faded shadows to soften the overall look, and added tonal highlights/shadows (blue shadows, yellow highlights normally) to normalize the color grade. This is because most photos were taken in raw format that capture very flat images in order to protect highlights and shadows (gives us more dynamic range). If we don't add back in contrast, etc. it will look "naked" and not even what the scene looked like in real life. The most important thing was fixing color casts since those are not things we see in reality, it is just camera science. In general, every edit was done to reflect each person as they appear in real life, and not to fix any "flaws," because these babes don't have any!
Q. WHY THE "X"?
A. Throughout Brown Papaya you'll notice the letter "x" in words like "Filipinx" and "womxn". Why use the "x"? By replacing the "a" with an "x", we protest the idea that "woman" is a subset of "man". We are claiming our independence, our own identities.
The spelling of "womxn" with an "x" has evolved throughout feminist history. It actually started with the letter "y", however its origins were not inclusive of the transgender community.
This spelling was first used in 1975 for the WoLF Creek Womyn's Festival and the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival in 1976, but attendees could only be "womyn-born-womyn" (cisgender womxn, or womxn who were assigned female at birth). Allowing only cisgender womxn excluded transgender womxn, or womxn who were assigned male at birth. The prominent use of "womyn" by white feminists and the resultant exclusion of womxn of other intersections led to a shift toward the more inclusive “womxn”.
The spelling of "womxn" with an "x" is a more inclusive term for all womxn. The "x" is open, a space for those who may be genderfluid, non-binary, trans womxn, womxn of color, or identify in ways "woman" does not resonate.
The expansiveness of the "x" is intended in the use of "Filipinx" as a communal term instead of the gendered use of "Filipino" or "Filipina". Contemporary Filipinx American culture often erases LGBTQIA+ identities, so the use of "x" is a space to name themselves.
The interviews in Brown Papaya span the use of "Filipino", "Filipina" and "Filipinx" as each individual has their own experiences and relationships to these terms. "Filipinx" is based on a Western understanding of gender, and in this project, a majority of the participants are referring to Filipinx American culture. In the end "Filipinx" is left open, and does not dictate anyone's identity, so folks can still identify themselves as Filipinx, Filipino, or Filipina.
Editor: Gilbert Gammad
Sources:
http://www.the-standard.org/news/woman-womyn-womxn-students-learn-about-intersectionality-in-womanhood/article_c6644a10-1351-11e7-914d-3f1208464c1e.htmlhttps://www.dailydot.com/irl/womyn/