Students from ArTES Magnet High School in the City of San Fernando were among 150 students from schools across Los Angeles who shared presentations on social issues relevant to their communities during Teach Democracy’s Civic Action Project (CAP) Expo.
Held last week at the California Endowment in downtown LA, the CAP Expo featured student poster projects addressing a variety of timely topics, including affordable housing, urban development, preventing gang violence, improving youth mental health and immigrant rights.
More than 70 students from ArTES Magnet participated in the CAP program during the school year, and five of them presented their group project at the expo. The project focused on how local ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids have deeply impacted families in their school and the greater community.
Aranza Guerrero, a senior at ArTES Magnet, said the CAP program helped her and her classmates learn how to organize their project and how to help influence change, which included planning a school walkout earlier this year to protest against ICE.
“It’s been great to see our project come together,” she said. “We were able to show politicians and large institutions that as … youth[s], we do have a voice, and we do have the ability to create change. The experience has given us a new perspective of what we can achieve.”
For fellow ArTES Magnet student Lizette Lopez, the project was personal.
“I had a friend and her family was deported, which was upsetting because we were getting close and talking about how we were going to graduate together, but then we couldn’t,” said Lopez.
“Our students are aware of the issues that impact their community, and the CAP course gives them the tools to identify the issues, take action and know that they have the power to change policies that affect them economically, culturally and socially,” said Olivia Naturman, a government, politics and economics teacher at ArTES Magnet. “Last summer, when the ICE raids hit our community hard and took parents away, our students worked with public officials, the local police department … and organized a protest that was inspiring and amazing to see.”
The CAP program – open to middle school and high school students – is offered through Teach Democracy, a nonpartisan nonprofit that develops civic learning materials for K-12 students.
To learn more about Teach Democracy, go to: www.teachdemocracy.org.