Volume 5, Issue 1 - Jan. 2006
Back to the main page
This month's feature
Public Art
What's happening
Welcome

By and For the Community
Nuestras Raíces engages youth in community mural making

Mural on Nuestras Raíces' main building. Credit: Nuestras Raíces.
William Aponte, the Youth Program Director at Nuestras Raíces, knew that summer afternoons in Holyoke are stickier than summer mornings. If the youth painting the mural on the wall of Nuestras Raíces would show up by 8:30 AM, the group could spend several hours painting before the heat became unbearable.

Every day, the youth in Aponte’s program showed up promptly at 8:30 AM.

“They felt good about it,” Aponte says. “When we were painting, people stopped by and the youth were proud to explain the mural and the messages it sent to the community. There were even a few bumper to bumper accidents in front of it as people slowed down to see what was going on.”

Nuestras Raíces is a grassroots organization promoting economic, human, and community development in Holyoke, Massachusetts through projects relating to food, agriculture, and the environment. Puerto Ricans comprise 40 percent of Holyoke’s population; many are recent immigrants and migrant farmers.

Nuestras Raíces manages eight community and two youth gardens, tended by more than 99 families. The gardens showcase the agricultural knowledge of Holyoke’s Puerto Rican community, featuring vegetables, herbs, and fruit native to Puerto Rico. A family who annually averages $10,000 in median income produces over $1,000 of organic produce each year. Economic development, environmental, cultural and youth development programs have grown from the gardens.

Youth painting a mural at the Holyoke Street School. Credit: Nuestras Raíces.
Through the Protectores de la Tierra (Protectors of the Land) program, Holyoke youth raise crops and livestock on their own farm, run a stand at the Holyoke Farmers’ Market, research the environmental problems disproportionately affecting Holyoke’s Latino community and develop projects to address them, participate in city planning, and train as community leaders. They help other youth in schools and afterschool programs in the Holyoke region build, plant and maintain gardens. They also design and paint murals celebrating Holyoke’s Puerto Rican agrarian culture.

From the beginning, community youth were heavily involved in Nuestras Raíces’ mural design project. Initially, many youth participants were nervous; they didn’t believe they had the artistic ability to paint a giant mural.

“They were thinking they’d mess up this big wall,” says Aponte. “They didn’t think they had the ability to do this.”

As the group began brainstorming ideas, the teens became more energetic about the mural. Flowers could be placed across the bottom to show how they beautify the community. Farmed mountains could represent the community’s Puerto Rican farming roots and Nuestras Raíces’ community gardens. The teens were talking about their culture and how they viewed the Holyoke community.

Mural sign at La Piedra Community Garden. Credit: Nuestras Raíces.
When the teens started painting, the community began to take interest in their work. Several asked if they could help, and Nuestras Raíces welcomed members of the community to come and paint with the teens. People stopped their cars, to ask about the mural; the youth were excited and proud to talk about the mural and the message of community pride and hope.

The teens, Nuestras Raíces, and the artist worked together as a group, holding meetings to discuss progress, ideas, and challenges. When the mural was finished, the youth were no longer nervous about the big wall and their artistic ability.

“They were proud,” says Aponte. “The youth showed leadership and a confidence about art that they didn’t have before.

As a result, the mural on the side of Nuestras Raíces building is a mural by the community for the community. It’s also breathtaking, colorful, and filled with references to life in Puerto Rico and Holyoke, Massachusetts.

The mural is so good, in fact, that other Holyoke organizations began requesting murals from the Nuestras Raíces youth. To date, the youth have painted murals in community and teen centers, schools, the Hampshire College admissions office, and, of course, the community gardens the youth help tend.

“[The murals] are certainly an important part of our strategy for engaging the community in improving the environment, food security and economy of our city and region,” says Daniel Ross, the Executive Director of Nuestras Raíces. “They celebrate the culture and pride of our youth artists and neighborhood residents. The murals mix the symbols, colors and heritage from tropical rural Puerto Rico with the styles and images of industrial New England, expressing the realities of Holyoke and helping catalyze social integration.”

Soon, the Nuestras Raíces youth will engage in a cross-country mural design project. With Literacy for Environmental Justice in San Francisco, Nuestras Raíces will design a community food mural that will be displayed at the W.K. Kellogg Food and Society Networking Conference in April 2006.