This Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, we’ll be sharing stories from past and present staff on their thoughts of how organizing and art interplay. Check for a new story each week.
Clara, AAOP Youth Manager, says, “When you incorporate art with organizing, the message becomes a lot more accessible and I find it to be more engaging.”
Clara says she still struggles to identify herself as an organizer. But she smiles when she instead says she organizes the youth.
For Clara, organizing means empowering communities to be leaders to making changes to the issues that impact them. The aim is to uplift leaders who are already there and give them the power to continue their work.
As a Youth Manager, Clara works to uplift the high school youth participants.
“There’s no way you could change the education system without youth leading,” Clara says. “They’re the ones who are in schools everyday, experiencing it firsthand. School is for them, so how can you make changes to schools without them leading?”
“In many ways, youth are more able to see a different future than adults because,” Clara says, “I think adults are very used to things being the way they are and they have a harder time imagining a way things could be.
The youth Clara works with, called the Youth Action Team, had been facilitating mental health workshops for other youth throughout St. Paul. These workshops were by youth, for youth, making it more relatable and relevant.
“At AAOP, the youth I’ve worked with have been so creative. They have so many ideas and they know what’s wrong and they know what needs to change. So it’s been really amazing being inspired by the youth and seeing all the things that they want to do.”
One of the projects the Youth Action Team is working on is compiling a zine to address the mental health safety of high school students during the COVID-19 crisis. This zine would include artwork from their peers. The youth are also planning on reaching out to their school principals on ways to provide youth mental health resources.
“Art is more engaging so it brings people in and it helps tell stories too, which is such a crucial part of organizing,” Clara says. “When you make and look at art, it goes beyond just activating the logical parts of your brain. You’re also feeling something and it’s also sensory so you can connect to whatever the artist is trying to tell you in a much more tangible way.
“When you bring some sort of message into it, I think it can help a lot of people learn about something new because it’s more engaging that way.”