Summer 2020
Color Compton Paid Internship
7 local youth participated in our 6-week internship that introduced Compton's history and art mediums. Students discussed narrative themes such as; controlling your narrative, owning your narrative and reclaiming your narrative. Black and brown narratives were highlighted.
Christian Cruz, 19
Jonathan Lopez, 19
Silvia Nuno, 20
Emily Orozco, 16
Karen Ramirez, 16
Michelle Rincon, 22
Emily San Vicente, 18
Christian Cruz,19
5
Gaayu’
Music plays throughout the mountains
Red and purple cover her body
We leave home to find “home”
Cinco
The desert becomes my playground
Playing hide n seek I run with one shoe
Afraid to be captured.
I play the game 2 times before I
“Win”
Five
I sit in silence
Put on my mask
Bottle everything up
I am
Home?
...
19
... Disculpame. I am sorry.
Jonathan
Lopez, 19
A Part of Me
I am a part of my father
I am a part of my mother
I am a part of all of my family who loves me like no other
I am a part of this country and of its history
And I am apart of the people who will forever remain a mystery
I am a part of the customs passed down for generations that ended just as I started my
American Education
I am a part of those family members that I will never get to meet, and I am a part of all those
places that I was forced to greet
I am a part of those seven schools that, as a child, I had to attend
And I am a part of all of those friendships that I was then forced to suspend
I am a part of all the decisions that have come to affect my life, whether I made them or not,
whether in joy or strife
I am a part of the hopes and the dreams of my distant ancestors, which they were forced to
abandon, forced to sequester
I am a part of the streets on which my grandmother has lived and I am a part of each meal that
she has been so generous to give
I am a part of the music that I have so desperately clung onto in an effort to fill the void of the
culture that I never knew
I am a part of all the memories that I decided to save, whether formed in a photograph, or in an
audio wave
I am apart of a lot more than I ever give myself credit for
I am a part of all of these moments, as they are a part of me
Silvia
Nuno, 20
emily
orozco, 16
“Cultural Pride In The Midst of Negativity”
As I’ve gotten older
I’ve come to learn
That bad is highlighted
And good is burned
You hear the news and you hear the stories
It makes all the good seem way too boring
When people hear the name of my city
They ask “is it scary” and cast on their pity
But no matter what they think about my life or of yours
Need no reminder that you will open a door
A door to the future, to remember your past,
And have pride of where you come from, to take on the best,
To look at your surroundings with a smile to say
“This is the neighborhood of perseverance, they’ll see it some day”
Karen,
ramirez,16
I am a chingona
I can shout it from a rooftop,
I can shout it from a plane,
I am a chingona,
By blood, through my language, and through my culture,
I come from a line of strong Mexican women,
Who found ways to take care of their families when they had nothing,
Who had to suffer through the countless scolds of their husbands,
Who had to use the resources they had to keep their family maintained,
Who are effortlessly chingonas,
Who made me a chingona
I come from parents who risked everything,
Who came to the U.S illegally to search for the American dream,
Who emerged into a new and strange culture,
A country whose leader makes it seem as if undocumented immigrants are wrong
As if they had a choice of spending countless days working to earn a few dollars a day
Or try to cross the border for a better life
My parents made me a chingona
I come from loud and proud Mexicans,
I have a culture like no other,
Parties on Saturdays and church on Sunday,
The piles of tamales as high as a mountain on Christmas,
The delicious food that my ama shoves down our throats when we visit,
Dozens of cousins who you can count on when you need them,
Having abuelitos who criticize you not to make you feel ashamed but to make you better,
My culture and family have made me a chingona
I come from a line of Spanish speakers,
I am bilingual because of them,
Being able to understand the novelas and understand the chisme that the neighbors tell,
Being able to translate for my grandma at the store,
Being able to listen to Bad Bunny in Spanish and being able to listen to Sza in English,
Although times I’m not good enough,
My grandparents ask, “Are you a guera, Why can’t you speak Spanish perfectly?”
“ Can you roll your R’s?”
I know that my language makes me a chingona.
Although I am not always proud of being who I am,
Society makes it seem as if being different was bad,
As if the only normal thing was being unoriginal,
However, I am a chingona
My imperfections make me a chingona,
Society can’t change the fact that I am who I am,
And I will always be a chingona
Michelle,
Rincon, 22
raíces
rancho nuevo
guadalupe de trujillo
zacatecas, mexico
si no hubieran cruzado el desierto
no estaría yo en este momento
tierras tongva
tierras kish
navegando sin ningún documento
eternamente agradecida
mi mama fue la que me enseñó a cultivar
amor, fuerza, respeto, comunidad
mi hermano va ser el que me va salvar
mi protector
alma gemela
amigos por el resto de nuestras vidas
momentos con ellos nunca se olvidarán
tias, tios, primos hermanos
estamos caminando esta vida mano en mano
la familia es mi fortaleza
han estado allí en todos momentos
todos juntos tratando de escapar de la pobreza
poco a poco estaban sembrando
un paso después del otro
nunca se rajaron
todo lo hicieron para nosotros
fueron la agua, la tierra, y la semilla a la misma vez
todo para alcanzar un tal atardecer
sin ellos no hay vida, son las raíces
ojala pudiera borrar todas sus cicatrices
pero deberían de estar orgullosos
crearon un jardín de flores
y ahora nos toca florecer
-
Michelle Rincón
emily
san vicente, 18
Mi Gente
Constantly taken advantage of
Only taken serious when itś convenient to the Gringos
Being told to shut up and not complain
But why should we not complain
Lack of opportunity en la comunidad
Violence which we've grown accustomed to
But you refuse to see our struggle
We are hard workers
We take the jobs
not even in your dreams you will do
But you will complain
That we are taking your opportunities
As if you are the ones getting the short end of the stick
Mama y Papa
My two hard working parents
Came to a land
Unknown to them
not knowing how to speak their language
They made it happen
They wanted a better life for sus hijos
Everyday they clean the houses of the rich
And even when they are there to assist los ricos
You decide to devalue them
Since you've decided
Que no tienen valor
I will show you how the hija of those hard workers
Is a luchadora
I will be the voice for my people
The voice which you have tried to take away
from mi gente los Dreamers, Immigrants,latinos,chicanos
And even though el gringo has decided
To separate us from our familias
And tell us we don't belong here
We will show you how
You are wrongfully mistaken
We are here to stay today, tomorrow y para siempre
I've dreamed of being an estrella
An estrella who will share the stories of her people
On the big screen
To show latino representation
To show the stories
which the gringos do not care about
Those stories which you try to cover up
Unrepresented in your whitewashed textbooks
You ask us to hide our cultura
To be ashamed of where we come from
Pero my spanglish
Is beautiful
Yo soy mi cultura
