Litzy Valencia, a junior at El Camino Real Charter High School in Woodland Hills, always looks forward to lunch on Tuesdays, when she meets with a group of classmates to exchange stories and work on art and writing projects together.
Most of the 15 or so teens have bonded over sharing similar, deeply impactful life experiences – having a parent, relative or loved one who has been incarcerated, detained or deported – and sometimes it’s enough for them to simply be present for each other, said 16-year-old Valencia.
The group Valencia is describing is the POPS (Pain of the Prison System) and PATHfinder (Paving A Trail of Hope) club, which meets every week on campus at El Camino Real.
“This small community [is like] a little family of people who I can trust with certain emotions and day-to-day things that impact all of us,” she said, adding that participating students are allies for one another, regardless of their specific family circumstances or differing backgrounds.
“I like talking with people and discovering the things that are behind their emotions,” said Valencia, who serves as club president and said she hopes to pursue a career in therapy.
Above all else, she emphasized, “We keep it a safe space for people to open up and share.”
And that was the primary goal of the club founders.
Amy Friedman, an author and criminal justice advocate, co-founded POPS with her husband, Dennis Danziger, at Venice High School in 2013. They have since partnered and merged with the nonprofit PATHfinder to offer clubs where teens can find peer support, club activities and opportunities for artistic expression to help them cope and heal from past or current challenges.
Each club offers a loving atmosphere that elevates the students’ voices, said Friedman.
“I believe these kids have this really deep knowledge and understanding about life that we should all have, [but] mostly in our culture, we don’t listen to teenagers,” she explained. By contrast, the clubs give participating teens a safe platform to freely express themselves.
As ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) arrests and deportations have ramped up nationwide under the current administration, along with growing anti-immigrant rhetoric, more kids are sharing their worries or experiences related to detention or deportation, said Friedman.
While incarceration and deportation may be different scenarios in various ways, for the kids or teens who experience the loss of a parent, guardian or a close relative who receives a prison sentence or ends up being detained or even deported, the fallout can be similarly devastating.
“I think the loss is precisely the same when you lose somebody you love to [prison] or being sent away – it’s a person you love who’s suddenly not there for you, so that has always been a shared experience,” said Friedman, noting that there’s also a shared stigma that overlaps both situations.
“If people are sent to prison because they committed a crime, there’s a stigma attached to that, and that stigma gets absorbed by the child [and their] family. I think that the [increasing] stigma now [is] toward people who are [undocumented]. Part of this country is labeling … and demonizing and stigmatizing a huge swath of our fellow Americans – our neighbors, our friends, our family members, our children,” continued Friedman, describing the mindset as “sick.”
Students are encouraged to create art, take photos and write poems or short stories as healing tools, described Friedman. And every spring for the last 10-plus years, many of their creative works have been featured in a yearly-published anthology to celebrate their talents and unique voices.
This year’s book – “A Secret Chord” – had its own unique sense of rhythm, said Friedman.
“This is one of my favorite books, because while I was [editing it] I started to hear something like music, like a song, and [it has] a rhythm I can almost hear,” she said. Via their creativity, they are “translating trauma, questions and joys … to help them better understand themselves.”
To date, there are six school-based POPS and PATHfinder clubs across Los Angeles – including El Camino Real, Venice High, LA High School for the Arts in Koreatown, Culver City High School, Lawndale High School and New Village Girls Academy in Rampart Village.
There are also six additional school or community-based clubs currently operating in Oregon, New York and Georgia.
James DeLarme, a social studies teacher at El Camino Real, has been the faculty sponsor for the POPS and PATHFinder club since 2016. One of the things he enjoys most about the group is “seeing the metamorphosis of these kids” – from subtle changes to dramatic transformations.
One of the students DeLarme remembers most is Jennifer B., who joined the club as a junior. For most of Jennifer’s young life, her mom struggled with addiction and ended up behind bars. The emotional weight of that trauma led Jennifer to be combative with teachers and struggle in school. Finding fellow students with similar family dynamics was a huge turning point for her.
“She really turned her life around [and became] very focused,” he recounted. Now in her early 20s, Jennifer sometimes visits POPS club meetings to share her inspiring personal journey.
DeLarme believes one of the best things about the club is the sense of community it fosters.
“These students carry this heavy load, a quiet load that other people often don’t see [or know about], and it affects so many things in their lives,” he said. But being in the club helps them, because “they don’t feel alone, and I think that that’s a huge gift – to no longer feel alone.”
“I feel that these clubs matter more than ever,” added Friedman. “These [kids] get to walk into a room filled with people – their fellow students, their friends – who care about them and admire them and hold them in their hearts.”