I LEARN AMERICA x MOLAA - StoryShare

YURIzca & Pavel acevedo conversation

Yuricza is a young Salvadorian living in Los Angeles. She’s a senior at the Miguel Contreras Educational Complex in downtown LA and will be attending UC Riverside next year. With I Learn America, she wrote a story about her journey to the US entitled, “Growing Stronger” and worked with her schoolmates to reformat 3 Paletero push-carts into libraries of stories. The carts have been used for community events at MOLAA. Yuricza and her story were also featured in a mural by artists Pavel Acevedo and Kate Deciccio for WERISE.LA.

Pavel Acevedo is an Oaxacan artist whose work explores the theme of migration, looking at how both humans and animals adapt and adopt new environments as a result of external stresses. He’s a student of revered printer Shinzaburo Takeda who attended Rufino Tamayo Plastic Arts Workshop in Oaxaca City and La Escuela de Bellas Artes of Oaxaca. Acevedo’s work is not only influenced by his migration experience and his surroundings, but by his grandfather’s Zapotec stories. With I Learn America, he collaborated in Los Angeles with youth to reformat Paletero Push-Carts and in Maryland to turn stories into codex/accordion books.

I LEARN AMERICA (ILA) is a transnational, multifaceted, and participatory youth development and education program that uses the power of creative storytelling and the arts to foster empathy, urgency, and action around issues affecting migrant youth, as they forge their path in a new land. Through collaborations with schools, storytelling mentors/artists, activists, and community-based organizations, ILA strengthens young people’s social-emotional learning and helps them transform their stories into tools for social change and personal growth.

To learn more about I LEARN AMERICA, visit their website.