NAOMI BOAS

MOVE! Housing Exhibit

While she was an intern at the Library in 2005 and 2006, Naomi curated a multimedia housing exhibit, "MOVE: Housing and the Struggle for a Livable L.A." The exhibit gathered and presented stories of how the daily fabric of people’s lives have been altered by shifting housing and welfare policies, and how communities have responded to create livable spaces for themselves and their neighbors.

It featured photography, artwork, and multimedia, including materials drawn from the Library's collections of housing activist Frank Wilkinson's papers, as well as photos documenting the restrictive covenants that used to bar people of color from buying or renting homes in many areas of Los Angeles and photos from the L.A. Housing Authority showing slum conditions. Interpretive artwork and multimedia stations helped to illuminate the stories of how housing issues in L.A. have impacted people’s lives, especially in poor and immigrant communities.

The exhibit kicked off at the Library's annual event in 2006 and was followed by a variety of public programming, including a community dialogue, a film festival, and youth art workshops. A film documentary on the Morrison Hotel was produced in conjunction with the project. In addition, local artists led youth arts workshops for local students to creatively explore housing, community and urban living issues through art activities and discussions.

V-Map

Naomi also talked about the Library's V-Map project, which forty South L.A. youth from ten different high schools participated in. Through the project, students worked together to research the political and economic history of the Vermont Corridor neighborhood near the Library, how it came to be the way it is now, and to develop their own analysis of conditions and solutions. The students gathered at the Library each week in circles and study groups as they pored through the Library's materials: the Charlotta Bass and California Eagle collection; collections on the Integration Project that worked to integrate L.A. schools; materials on the Watts Rebellion and the 1992 Uprising; and subject files on education, immigration, transportation, housing, labor, and more.

At the project's end, the youth shared their learnings through walking tours, open to the public, of the Vermont corridor neighborhood, focusing on local economic health and transportation issues.

Read an article on the tours that ran in the California section of the L.A. Times on Sunday, June 10.

Gena worked on the event "From Slave Patrol to Border Patrol," while she was at the Library. The event featured a screening of Rights on the Line, a powerful documentary in which residents of border communities and activists capture the tension caused by the vigilante Minuteman Project. The screening was followed by a panel of activists working on issues of labor and immigration and was attended by over 125 people. The event drew the historical connections between the slave patrols in the South, which functioned to impede mobility and ensure return to the plantation, and today’s border patrol, which acts to impede mobility and to reinforce existing inequalities and social structures that leave targeted groups economically vulnerable.

The event was featured in the Eastern Publications Group newspapers, which publishes a number of local newspapers aimed at L.A.'s Latino population. Clips from the documentary and a discussion of the issues were featured on KPFK’s Uprising show, hosted by Sonali Kolhatkar, and the event also previewed on KPFK’s The Morning Review, hosted by Eisha Mason.

MELINA MONROY

Melina worked on two youth programs while she was at the Library: Project Free Your mInd (FYI) and Latinas in Motion.

Project FYI was a 7-week training for youth ages 14­19 living in South L.A. Close to 300 young people expressed interest in the program following outreach to local schools and youth organizations, and about 35-40 youth attended the actual program. The youth identified issues and needs affecting the community and how those issues impact their lives and homes. They also explored the legacy of organizing and social justice from the past to the present. As a final project, the students designed and wrote a zine to transform their experience and knowledge into action. The project helped to lay the foundation for other youth programs at the Library, like Latinas in Motion and V-Map.

Latinas in Motion (see photo) was a workshop for tenth grade Latinas at local South L.A. high schools. It was aimed at encouraging and preparing the young women to pursue higher education.

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