Celebrating Community Partners this Latinx Heritage Month

Latinx Heritage Month is a time of celebration when we honor the rich cultural and community contributions of Latinx communities such as celebrated authors Sandra Cisneros and Julia Alvarez, advocates and activists like Dolores Huerta, chef José Andrés, and Uvalde, TX mom Angela Villescaz who formed Fierce Madres to advocate for gun safety after the mass shooting in her community. Even so, we should also recognize the pressing issues the community faces, such as disinvestment in communities, overpolicing, and unjust immigration policies. 
 

We are proud to highlight and learn from the work of community partners and collaboratives that are addressing these issues and promoting health, safety, and wellbeing. 

• East End Communities is a cross-sector, youth, and resident-led Communities of Care collaborative galvanizing community change in Greater East End, a predominantly Latinx neighborhood in Houston, Texas. The BIPOC-led collaborative leverages culturally relevant and accessible strategies—hosting La Platicas (“The Talks”) and holding a PhotoVoice project—to authentically engage residents and devise a long-term plan for improving community conditions linked to robust mental health and wellbeing. Their current priorities—arts and cultural expression, social networks and trust, and housing—reinforce East End’s rich cultural, historical, and social fabric.

• As People, Parks, and Power (P3) partners:
   
  • Make the Road Nevada and Chispa Arizona organize with a majority Latinx, immigrant, and working-class base who experience the effects of climate change—specifically, extreme heat. These experiences have led them to take on park and green space inequities and to explore policy and systems-change options for prioritizing green space and green infrastructure for reducing urban heat.

  • Chainbreaker Collective is a member-led economic and environmental justice organization in Santa Fe, NM. The collective explores and advocates for models that increase community control over local development, fight displacement and increase access to green space.

  • CAUSE, in partnership with Lideres Campesinas and Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project (MICOP), works with Latinx and Indigenous Mexican agricultural farmworkers in Oxnard, CA to advance local land use policies that increase access to parks and green space.

• As Safety Through Connection partners:
   
  • Mujeres Poderosas Amorosas (MPA), is a project of Cultiva La Salud based in Fresno, CA. MPA applies Cultiva La Salud’s long history of implementing culturally rooted policies, systems, and environmental change strategies to cultivate networks of Latina immigrants to build individual and community resilience, safety and healing and mitigate the risk of domestic violence.
     
  • Promesa Boyle Heights (Promesa) is a multi-generational collective impact initiative of Proyecto Pastoral, a community-based and resident-led Boyle Heights organization. The Wellness Solutions team, comprised of community leaders, promotoras, and other healthcare partners, domestic violence prevention advocates, and others are engaged in a year-long community learning and mobilization process to understand the dynamics and root causes of domestic violence, and design culturally rooted strengths-based solutions that build on existing parent leadership and community organizing strategies.

• Solito: A Memoir by Javier Zamora (En Español)

• Harvest of Empire:  A History of Latinos in America by Juan Gonzalez (En Español)

• Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States by Felipe Fernández-Armesto

• The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (En Español)

• Finding Latinx: In Search of the Voices Redefining Latino Identity by Paola Ramos

• Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa

• This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa

Communities of Care is supported by the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health; People, Parks, and Power is a joint effort of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; and Safety Through Connection is supported by the Blue Shield of California Foundation.