Summer 2021
Color Compton Paid Internship
5 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.
Amber Ramirez, 15
Melissa Garcia, 17
Tais Mendez Reyes, 14
Brooklynn Campbell, 14
Daniela Perez Gavira, 18
Amber Ramirez,15
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.
Mellisa garcia,17
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
TAIS MENDEZ REYES, 14
bROOKLYNN CAMPBELL, 14
“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”
DANIELA PEREZ GAVIRA,18
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
