Words have the power to shape realities and have helped transform communities. Read on for more stories of artists using literature to speak truth to power.
There's an incredible geographic, cultural and even philosophical diversity in the Los Angeles poetry community. Over 60 poets gathered at "A Day of Poetry in LA" to honor and celebrates these differences.
Since the Chinese Exclusion Act made Chinese laborers "America's first undocumented," Asian Americans have helped to dream a new America. Watch Michelle Mush Lee's poetic recollection of solidarity throughout history.
Compton-raised writers Robin Coste Lewis (former Los Angeles poet laureate), Amaud Jamaul Johnson (poet, professor and National Book Critics Circle finalist) and Jenise Miller (a poet and urban planner of Panamanian descent) discuss a Compton beyond the popular imagination.
Now on its 10th year, Sunday Jump in Historic Filipinotown has facilitated a safe space for marginalized voices to express themselves, share stories and create genuine connections to the arts.
Vigilant Love is an inter-spiritual and multi-generational advocacy group, whose deep cross-cultural friendships and approach to building solidarity between Muslim and Japanese American youth provides an incredible model for society to move forward.
In response to L.A.'s transitory poetry scene, Hiram Sims has founded Southern California's only library of poetry, located in South Central Los Angeles.
An arts movement emerged in ‘60s Watts. In response, federal and local law enforcement enacted counterinsurgency programs that infiltrated and co-opted Black arts and culture institutions and surveilled and targeted activists, artists and community member
Sarah Rafael García, founder of the mobile library LibroMobile, is a familiar face of success in Santa Ana. Yet she attributes her accomplishments in writing, teaching, publishing and more to acknowledging her discomfort as an out-of-place Chicana.