Montebello community unites through art and healing workshop during ICE raids

City of Montebello Councilmember Scarlet Peralta and BLVD MRKT co-founder Barney Santos teamed up on Wednesday, June 18, to create a supportive space for reflection through art for the community due to the recent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids around the neighborhood and the ongoing fear this brings to the community. 

We Speak Through Art, Youth Expression & Healing Workshop was created by Peralta for anyone who wanted to express themselves and provide the tools to do so. 

Supplies for the event were donated by supporters, including journals, paper, glue, posters and more, to make this volunteer-run event possible. There were two supply drop-off locations, including BLVD MRKT and Ground Up Coffee, both located in Montebello. 

“It feels really beautiful. Even the days leading up to this, the overwhelming support of donations of art supplies, to teachers, to creative artists, reaching out and saying, ‘How can I help lead an art station?’ Even now, having a lot of our young kids come out and just express themselves through different avenues… We have little ones [who] are just drawing their feelings,” Peralta said. 

“It's just a beautiful space to be in, and I think, empowering, especially right now. We're all going through it. We all feel sad. We all feel very complex emotions, and to just be in a safe space and see what's being created, created out of our emotions, is, I think, a very humbling and also very beautiful experience,” she continued. 

Cristina Dypiangco, a yoga instructor, noticed the event flyer on Ground Up Coffee’s Instagram page calling for volunteers. She reached out to Peralta with an agenda to support the journaling table with writing topics, which also offered reflection activities, and became the station leader. 

Growing up, Dypiangco didn’t have many spaces like this that allowed her to process her situation and show up. 

“I think it’s great to be able to have this space to show up authentically as is so that we’re able to support and hold each other,” Dypiangco said. 

“It’s choosing this time to come together and come for each other. It’s just a moment for people to pour back into themselves, especially in a time when there’s just a lot going on, a lot of chaos, a lot of unjust violence. It’s like how can we be here together and remember that we’re stronger together,” she continued. 

Teresa Ortiz, a former Montebello resident, didn’t expect to see the event happening when she met with the Montebello Run Club, a running club that meets every Wednesday at BLVD MRKT. 

She stayed after the run for her daughter to paint with other children participating in the event, feeling optimistic by being surrounded by other community members. 

“You know, you feel safe in a group rather than by yourself, you’re in a safe space with everyone,” Ortiz said. 

Peralta began organizing art events for the city last year, titled Roots of Resilience, with themes such as kindness matters, celebrating you, and celebrating your culture. 

She calls out to artists in the city between the ages of five to 18 to submit their artwork and showcase their work at city hall in order to create an art gallery. It’s a way to show them that their art matters. 

Art has always played an impactful role in Peralta’s life since her youth. 

“I was undocumented. I came here when I was two years old. I didn't get my citizenship till I was about 22 years old. During the walkouts and all the situations where I wanted to go out and protest, I wasn't able to,” Peralta said. “So what I did was I would make banners and posters for my friends. That was my silent way of being resilient and also participating in the situation. I'm not a creative person, but for me, art always spoke to me as an opportunity of being able to speak out loud in a different way,” she said. 

A Roots of Resilience event was held earlier this year, and Peralta wanted to continue to let art speak for the community. 

“I figured now that everything was going on with the ICE raids and how our community was hurting, it's like, well, why not jump off of that and do something else as well? And I think for me, it was, ‘How can I continue to create a safe space and really activate our young artists to be able to express themselves?’ Especially now in a time where it's so critical and where I think there's a lot of frustration, a lot of anger, sadness, and how do we let that out in a way that's safe for youth to do so,” Peralta said. 

She reached out to Santos to provide the space for the event, as BLVD MRKT is known to give back to the community. 

“The past week and a half has been really hard mentally on so many people. Documented, undocumented, everybody's impacted by this directly or indirectly…This is LA, everybody is somehow indirectly connected to this. One thing we knew about this, what's going on is that people really needed some sort of outlet to kind of cope with what's happening,” Santos said. 

“I just want to thank Councilmember Scarlet Peralta, and thank our community for trusting us and giving us that responsibility, and holding us to that,” Santos continued. Because I feel when the community looks at places and people as community leaders and they choose to stay silent, or they choose not to get political, when humanity is on the line, like their brother and sisters are being treated the way they are, to me, that is the worst. For the community to trust us the way they do means everything, and I don't want to abuse that trust. And that's why we're having these events, and that's why we're so outspoken, because we are all about the community.” 

Follow BLVD MRKT on Instagram for future events.