commitment to advocacy, cultural preservation, and anti-displacement efforts
Self Help Graphics & Art resides in Apachiagna, currently known as the Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights, where the original peoples of this territory- the Tongva, Chumash, and Tataviam - were first displaced.
In the last decade, in particular, we have seen Los Angeles transform rapidly due to development. This is not only altering the landscape of Boyle Heights (a former redlined neighborhood that experienced blight and disinvestment for decades before becoming one of the hottest real estate markets in the nation) and adjacent neighborhoods but has resulted in gentrification and subsequently the displacement of individuals, families and small independent business owners from the community. In Boyle Heights, our neighbors have rallied over issues such as affordable housing, anti-displacement, clean air and soil, investment in youth programs, immigrants’ rights, and the abolishment of ICE-- all critical issues of our day. We understand the scope and impact of these intersecting issues and hear the struggles of our community loud and clear.
As a community-based arts organization, Self Help Graphics & Art has been at the intersection of arts practice and social justice since our inception and is a catalyst for cultural restoration, preservation, and traditions through the arts. Our mission is dedicated to the production, interpretation, and distribution of prints and other art media by Chicana/o and Latinx artists, and we foster uplifting the narrative of the issues of our community by providing access to space, tools, training, and capital to support advocacy through artivism, policy change, and practicum. Through projects such as the “Know Your Rights” campaign in collaboration with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) and The California Endowment, the #InvestInYouth campaign through the Boyle Heights Building Healthy Communities (BHBHC) initiative, anti-displacement work through Eastside LEADS and advocacy previously through “Residents and Artists Investing in Community Development and Empowerment Strategies” (R.A.I.C.E.S.), we share a vision of informing, empowering and healing community in a way that has become part of the fabric of our work that stretches beyond the print studio. As a previous member of the BHBHC and a current member of Eastside LEADS, Self Help Graphics & Art stays dedicated to our mission and values while speaking up and staying accountable to the communities we serve.
We know our impact through this work is not rapid enough to stave off inequitable development and acknowledge that with our limited capacity, we must be strategic in focusing on policy-driven change for the long-term sustainability of our community. We welcome dialogue grounded in constructive reflection and critique to become a better organization and resource to our neighbors. We will not compromise our mission to continue to nurture creativity in our community and provide platforms for expression and empowerment aligned with our values that encourage spirituality and creative heart, inclusion, social consciousness, innovation, integrity, and accessibility. SHG believes wholeheartedly in the transformative power of the arts and will continue to use our influence in the arts as the vehicle to address social justice issues that most deeply affect our neighborhoods, from around the block to around the world.
collaborative ADVoCACY
boyle heights BUILDING HEALTHY COMMUNITIES
Building Healthy Communities (BHC) was a ten-year initiative of The California Endowment that ended in 2020. BHC worked locally in 14 communities across California to create a broad, statewide impact and assume that where we live, our race, and our income impact our health and well-being. Self Help Graphics was part of the Boyle Heights BHC for many years and participated in the Health Happens in Neighborhoods arm of work to support and advocate for youth through Invest in Youth. As an arts partner, SHG has helped create and support artistic interventions and civic engagement programs and is heavily involved in anti-displacement efforts through the Eastside LEADS collaborative. Although the initiative has ended, Self Help Graphics continues to be involved in these efforts. For more information, please visit the California Endowment’s BHC review.
eastside leads coalition
Eastside LEADS (Leadership for Equitable and Accountable Development Strategies) is a coalition of 9 organizations that started as part of the Building Healthy Communities initiative. Eastside LEADS focuses on ensuring all development in our neighborhood actively includes community voices at the planning stages and beyond. We want positive change that is driven by the community and protects the existing residents from displacement. For more information, please visit the Eastside LEADS website here.
INVEST IN YOUTH Coalition
The Invest in Youth Coalition was formed to demand that the city of Los Angeles create a Youth Development Department. Our approach to Youth Development in Los Angeles is a holistic and cultural approach that encompasses and provides the resources and pathways for youth to develop and engage in their academic, economic, emotional, creative, physical, mental, and spiritual wellness. Youth development provides a platform for youth to shape the systems that impact them. #InvestInYouth
A single department at the city level would allow for Los Angeles to invest in its youth by focusing on a primary mission of youth development, distributing funds in an equitable manner, analyzing data from multiple sources, coordinating with LA County, LAUSD, and organizations, pursuing federal, state, and private funding opportunities.
Learn about the YOUTH MAYOR race in 2017: Youth Mayor and BHC Youth Mayor.
In 2021, after many years of advocacy, members of the Los Angeles City Council introduced a motion to make the Youth Development Department a reality! Read about it here
SHG YOUTH COMMITTEE AND YOUTH ARTIVISM INTERNSHIP
EASTSIDE LEADS COALITION TENANT POWER! ZINE BY SHG YOUTH ARTIVISTS
Self Help Graphics & Art’s 2020/2021 cohort of Youth Artivists– Priscilla Hernandez, Vanya Navarrete and Sophia Garcia– researched, photographed and illustrated a bilingual zine for Eastside Los Angeles tenants titled Tenant Power!/¡Poder Inquilino! for our work with the Eastside LEADS Coalition.
After hearing concerns from community members, the team developed a booklet addressing permanent tenant protections, addressing issues past the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally the zine includes comic-style illustrations of potential scenarios renters could find themselves in, such as landlord harassment and the inability to pay rent. Our artivists included Eastside neighborhood maps to show local legal, housing, food and health resources across local neighborhoods!
Download the digital zine for free and please share! Eastside LEADS has printed 1,000 copies to distribute to tenants on the Eastside using the risograph technique by Tiny Splendor. This zine is part of the Stay Housed program.
SHG YOUTH HOUSING JUSTICE VIDEO SERIES
During the Spring of 2021, the SHG Youth Committee and Youth Artivism Interns worked on a housing justice video project with guidance from artist Amara Higuera Hopping. The youth interviewed different community members and organizers working across the Eastside of Los Angeles to learn more about the history of displacement, tenant rights, community empowerment, and organizing.
Edited by Amara Higuera Hopping. Directed by the SHG Youth and Natalie Godinez. SHG Youth: Jacqueline Aguirre, Fariyan Alam, Citlaly Flores, Sophia García, Priscilla Hernández, Sonia Maturano, Sabrina Mendoza, Vanya Navarrete, Josiah O'Balles, Elizabeth Simon, Andrea Tupas, and Ashley Valle.
Thank you to Milo Woods for proposing this project and to the Global Scholars program at Polytechnic School for providing the funding.
Watch the video series here.
Self Help Graphics & Art supports the movement to defend Black lives. Los Angeles and the country have borne witness to the injustices experienced by the Black community, in particular in the wake of the latest killing of George Floyd, by an officer of the law. We mourn the lives of the deceased, including Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Tony McDade, and share in grief for our Black brothers and sisters. As a Latinx organization rooted in social justice for 47 years, Self Help Graphics & Art (SHG) stands in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and Black relatives everywhere; and supports the need to take our voices to the streets in protest in defense of Black lives. Read the full statement here.
SHG also signed on to a letter in solidarity with African-American, Afro-Latinx, Afro-Mexicano, Afro-Indigenous and Black relatives everywhere but especially in the USA by American Indian and Indigenous Peoples organizations in Los Angeles. Read the letter here.
In support with the BLM movement, SHG Artists Dewey Tafoya and Andi Xoch from Ni Santas have made the following posters accessible for anyone to download and print for personal use (non-commercial).
Binding displacement
Binding Displacement was a youth-led action that took place on the corner of 1st and Boyle in direct response to Metro’s process allowing the developer of the site to do extremely limited outreach with its publics. The mixed use housing development was presented to the community as a final plan, without having consulted and done its due diligence with community members about what they may want to see or need from that property. Youth led a survey process through ribbons that asked students and passersby what they would want to see on the lot, who then wrote their answers on ribbons and tied them to the fence.
The action brought out representatives of Metro and the developer’s office, and they all engaged in the process, providing their own responses for the artistic installation. This action was part of a larger effort to affect Metro’s policy pertaining to the amount of time that developers must plan for community outreach and engagement. It also serves as an example of the creative ways that they can engage with the public and meet the people impacted by these developments.
KNOW YOUR RIGHTS/conozca sus derechos
In light of increased ICE raids at a local and national level and eventually the threat to end DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), SHG produced this Know Your Rights poster with then summer intern Katherine Chavez to share in English and Spanish immediate actions to take should an individual be approached by ICE. This poster has been distributed at numerous events in partnership with the Building Healthy Communities Boyle Heights collaborative, National Day Laborer Organizing Network and artists from SHG’s Barrio Mobile Art Studio.
We encourage you to use this link to download, print and distribute this information in your communities.
census 2020
2020 CENSUS CAMPAIGN: MAKE IT COUNT
Census 2020 is here and Self Help Graphics & Art is dedicated to helping our community all over Los Angeles get counted in the 2020 Census!
SHG has partnered with organizations participating in the Census campaign to support getting out the count. Initially these partnerships were to include live art activations led by our Barrio Mobile Art Studio (BMAS) artists, who are trained on Census FAQs. However, during the Covid-19 state of emergency, our outreach has been integrated further online, such as this “How To Fill Out the Census Form” webinar. Watch it now on our YouTube channel! Check out blog for more census stories and follow us on social media for real time online programming and Census updates.
Our Teaching Artists and Youth Committee continue to engage with hard-to-count communities online while we are safer at home; inviting online census programming participants to envision and identify their community needs, and paint a picture of what their neighborhood can look like when they are counted.
2020 CENSUS WORKSHOPS
Hey LA, make it count! Learn about why it’s important to be counted in the Census. Through silkscreen printing and watercolor, participants will vision and identify their community needs, and paint a picture of what their neighborhood can look like when counted!
Our community workshops serve as an informative and creative way to learn about the Census and help participants understand how being counted benefits their community. The workshop is free and for all ages! You will find us at the libraries, senior centers, parks and at various events in the regions of North East LA, Unincorporated East LA, Boyle Heights, South LA, and South East LA. Download our Census workbook.
CENSUS BILLBOARDS
See the serigraphs artists April Bey, Martha Carrillo, and Phung Huynh, were invited to produce now on billboards throughout the city!
4th Street and Matthews, Martha Carrillo, We All Count, 2020
Telegraph Road and Olympic Blvd, Martha Carrillo, We All Count, 2020
1st Street and Lorena Street, Martha Carrillo, We All Count, 2020
Cesar Chavez Ave and Lorena Street, April Bey, Blanca 1996, 2020
Griffin Ave and Broadway, April Bey, Blanca 1996, 2020
Valley Blvd and Boca Ave, Phung Huynh, Our Voices Count, 2020
Figueroa Street and Arroyo Glen Street, April Bey, Blanca 1996, 2020
Figueroa Street and Ave 26, Martha Carrillo, We All Count, 2020
San Fernando Road and Division Street, Phung Huynh, Our Voices Count, 2020
2020 CENSUS SERIGRAPH ATELIER
In addition to art workshops, artists April Bey, Martha Carrillo, and Phung Huynh, were invited to produce an original serigraph for an atelier focused on communicating a positive message and importance of participating in the 2020 Census. With creative liberty and guided by the spirit of expanding awareness of systems in place, the print portfolio is a documentation of time, a platform for empowerment and a source of knowledge for people across Los Angeles County.
The third element of SHG’s work is the mass distribution of designed posters highlighting information about the 2020 Census. The poster are bilingual in English and Spanish and displayed on the walls of local businesses with permission from the owners. This will create an additional opportunity to connect to the community surrounding SHG.