The environment — and girl empowerment
Mural helps students see their own stories in rare bird’s journey.
The rare yellow-billed cuckoo is a shy, slender, long-tailed bird that migrates from Central America in spring to breed in stream-side forests that once thrived throughout Southern California.
And that got a group of female high school students and art instructors thinking about developing a mural about federally threatened species and people who come from as far away as Central America in search of a better life.
Over 18 months, students and instructors from the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex’s Academic Learning Community in downtown Los Angeles used photographs, stencils and paint to produce a mural on a wall overlooking the school’s basketball courts that is a mix of female empowerment, social commentary and environmental conservation.
The 25-foot-by-75-foot work uses color portraits of the birds and the girls’ faces as symbols to open lines of inquiry into the intersections between urban and wild, local and displaced, migration corridors and international borders.
Through it all, art instructors Tani Ikeda, 29, and Jess X. Chen, 24, and their students and assistants developed strong personal bonds.
“At first, I thought it would just be cool to have my picture on the wall,” said Linda Lozano, 16, a junior at Miguel Contreras and an aspiring architect. “Then I learned about the bird’s life cycles, and the reasons why immigrants come here from Mexico and Central America.
“We related all that to our own families, friends — and all of Los Angeles,” Linda said. “Then it hit me: Dang, that’s our story up there on that wall.”
On Tuesday, the group gathered at the mural to exchange high-fives and apply finishing touches of paint on the birds and their self-portraits.
“This project required a lot of hard work and soulsearching,” said Ikeda, who founded an after-school nonprofit program for young women called ImMEDIAte Justice. “But it was worth it. We could not be more proud of what we’ve accomplished.”
Giving an approving nod to the students standing next to the gleaming images,
Chen added, “We’re telling a powerful story on this wall, and it will be here forever.”