Take hold of history: Through poetry, painting, mapping and creating a website, an art student is helping students take history into their own hands.

“Ever wonder who lived in your house before you moved in? Ever think about whose race or culture inhabited your neighborhood before its current residents? Ever question what your city looked like 50 years ago? Well, Roosevelt High School students in Boyle Heights are asking these questions and finding the answers. By writing poetry, painting murals, drawing maps and creating websites about their neighborhood, the students have taken history into their own hands. Said project associate Moira Kenney, “The enthusiasm for their project is amazing. We expected [the students] to be wary but they’re really in control. It’s their story. They are interested in telling people about their neighborhood.”
The program, which is part of a project called Local Libraries / Local Knowledge, is organized by Mario Ontiveros, a research assistant in the Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and Humanities. Ontiveros also is earning a Ph.D. in art history at UCLA with a focus in contemporary and Chicano art. “My research is about East L.A., so doing this project seemed natural,” Ontiveros said.
This is not Ontiveros’ first effort in helping students document history. Last year he was involved in a project called “History in Memory” in which some of Belvedere Middle School’s students collected oral histories from their own relatives.
When he began to work for the Getty Research Institute, he asked to help with the Boyle Heights project. The Getty picked Boyle Heights because of its culturally diverse past. Although it is predominantly Latino, previously it was the home of Japanese, Jewish, and Chinese people. “Boyle Heights is like the Ellis Island of the West Coast,” according to George Sanchez, a historian assisting with the Local Libraries / Local Knowledge project.
The Benjamin Franklin library, a meeting place for the project participants, has some history of its own. “This library was the first branch library in the city of L.A. It opened in 1910, burned down in 1976 due to an earthquake and was rebuilt in the same location,” Kenney stated.
“From the beginning it’s really been [the students’] project,” Ontiveros said. “It wouldn’t work without the high school students being involved in this. We [the Getty] had a framework and they were the ones who have driven this thing. The Getty helped tie the stuff together with a staff and the college students helped direct it but the students are the ones who have been doing the work. The kids are articulating their sense of self and their own environment. The students have access to actually write their own history.”
“Local Libraries / Local Knowledge” was started in February of 1997 with an overview of the history of Boyle Heights by Jewish, Mexican, and Chinese historians. Many Boyle Heights residents attended. “This project does not begin with traditional resources or research such as census data or city maps, but with the library users themselves—their own images and maps of the library neighborhood. Bringing together library users with library staff and others to produce a local picture of the branch library staff and others to produce a local picture of the branch library neighborhood…”
On March 22, 1997 high school and college students took a walk around the neighborhood to discover the past. After the neighborhood walk, the participants gathered at the Benjamin Franklin branch library to map the neighborhood with the guidance of college students from the urban planning department at Cal Poly Pomona. Other college students from Cal Poly Pomona who either grew up in East L.A. or were involved in Chicano studies also contributed to the project.
Web site designer, Julie Crane, is helping the kids to make the web site that documents the project. “They’re a really dedicated group… The Internet reaches a lot more people than TV and movies. These kids are going to reach the whole world with the information about their community.”
In June there will be a publication party to celebrate the work of the students and other members of the community. There will be a slide show and a reception to open the exhibit of maps and drawings. The exhibit of the work of the Boyle Heights residents will be displayed from June until September at Self-Help Graphics in East L.A. The finale project for the students will be a play of the history of Boyle Heights.
Now that you have read about how exciting learning about the history of a community is, you’re probably asking if this project will be coming to your neighborhood. “It begins here [in Boyle Heights]. Next year the project will be extended to different libraries, but the dynamics will change,” Ontiveros said.”

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