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By Nadine Natour, NBCLatino

This is the second installment of Latinas empowering other Latinas to succeed in honor of Women’s History Month. 

For ten high school girls enrolled in the photography program Las Fotos Project, the summer of 2012 was a lesson in disguise.

Rather then a host of drowsy days spent on the sidewalks of Los Angeles, they traipsed through the San Gabriel Mountains and snapped photos of rocky cliffs and lazy rivers, lilies in full bloom and vistas of the California landscape.

The group then used the same film to capture scenes in their community, edited the double exposure photographs and wrote poems to accompany the art. Finally, the girls published a bookfeaturing the photographs and presented it at a public exhibition which they personally marketed.

Founded by freelance photographer Eric Ibarra, Las Fotos Project helps its young Latina members build their photography skills and their confidence.“The program is such a unique setup,” says the 28-year-old Ibarra, who launched the club three years ago after he noticed a lack of extracurricular opportunities in the area for young girls. “They learn all these life skills almost without realizing it.”

Ibarra partners with Los Angeles organizations to find Latinas aged 11-17 who could most benefit from the experience. The girls, who often come from low-income or middle-income communities, then enroll in ten-week classes where they’re quickly taught the basics and given a personal point-and-shoot camera.

Las Fotos mentors help the students brainstorm possible field projects, with the freedom to choose any theme or landscape near the Boyle Heights headquarters. Every project ends with a community exhibit, photo book or mini-documentary.

Lizbeth Rojas, now a student at Loyola Marymount University,  joined the group at 17 and suggested the San Gabriel trip for their summer project. She says it gave her a different perspective on her East Los Angeles neighborhood.

“We feel like we have to live in a place where it has to be busy but being in the mountains is different,” says Rojas, who ultimately led the trip. “I was able to notice things. It gave me another view of the world.”Another member of the group, Ana Cortes, created a photograph of a craggy mountain scape over the facade of the East Los Angeles Municipal Courts. She captioned the photo: “We owe nature justice!”

“I took a picture of the courts because I’ve always been into law and law enforcement,” says Ana, now a freshman studying criminal justice at California State University, Los Angeles.

Cortes joined the group at 17, never having handled a film camera. She says the group made her feel more confident and stood in marked contrast to her experience at her high school.

“At school, everyone’s judging everyone ,” says Cortes. But the project, she says, was “totally different. I was shy at first but it was fun and you just felt welcome.”

The various field projects offer the students a chance to explore their community but, more often, they wind up exploring their inner selves. For one assignment, the girls were told to take photos of the most inspiring person in their life. They then fashioned the photo series into a revealing video documentary.

Las Fotos Project maintains a roster of around sixteen girls at a time, in several California locations as well as a project in Guatemala. According to Ibarra, the girls can remain in the program once they pass the 17-year-old age limit, but many go on to attend college or find work elsewhere.

Though she has aged out of the program, Ana Cortes says she still retains a love of photography. She said she plans to take photos and create a scrapbook of her family, friends and memorable events.

“It was my own idea, something to keep all the nice memories I’ve had,” says Cortes. “I’ll do it just for fun, just for me.”

This article was first published in NBCLatino.

[Photo by ric Ibarra/Las Fotos Project]

By Angelina, Our Tiempo

“Superheroes: Latino Immigrants Who Make New York,” is now on display at Columbia University. Photographer Dulce Pinzón has captured images of New York immigrants who daily overcome long and hard working conditions just to put food on the table.

Dulce says-

“After September 11, the notion of the “hero” began to rear its head in the public consciousness more and more frequently. The notion served a necessity in a time of national and global crisis to acknowledge those who showed extraordinary courage or determination in the face of danger, sometimes even sacrificing their lives in an attempt to save others. However, in the whirlwind of journalism surrounding these deservedly front-page disasters and emergencies, it is easy to take for granted the heroes who sacrifice immeasurable life and labor in their day to day lives for the good of others, but do so in a somewhat less spectacular setting.

The Mexican immigrant worker in New York is a perfect example of the hero who has gone unnoticed. It is common for a Mexican worker in New York to work extraordinary hours in extreme conditions for very low wages which are saved at great cost and sacrifice and sent to families and communities in Mexico who rely on them to survive.”

If you can’t make it to NYC check out her website for some more amazing images.

This article was first published in Our Tiempo.

Angelina is a multifaceted Chicago-based Graphic Artist. Specializing in visual communications and brand identity, she is known for using rich, bold colors in her work and exhibition design spaces. She created the brand identity of nationally recognized exhibitions and organizations. Angelina has also participated as an artist in the international exhibition, Cool Globes.

[Photo by Dulce Puinzón]

Imagine La Malinche as a feminist — or El Valiente as a woman who’s coming out — or better yet, imagine La Rosa as a girl with pink hair. These images, and several others, form part of an art project created by Audrey Silvestre, Erika Flores and Cesar Cabrera for the La Raza Student Association Art Show at California State University at Long Beach in March.

Making a play on the traditional Lotería game, the trio created the Jotería series as a Facebook Page and have plans to revisit the project in the future.

We spoke to Silvestre, who told us that she and her friends only had three weeks to get the project together. The project started off as a kind of joke, something that could help the trio fundraise for an upcoming conference, but the idea quickly evolved into a full-blown series. Thus far, there are 48 of the images and Silvestre says it’s important to take them as a whole, not just individually.

“We wanted to make them funny, but also add political awareness. Some have more political implications, for instance with La Muerte we had the crosses to show the women of Juárez,” Silvestre told us, pointing to other examples.

La Malinche in this case is a feminist, someone who’s questioning things that make others uncomfortable. The idea, she tells us, is to mess with ideas of gender and sexuality.

“Lotería cards are a big staple of Latino/Chicano culture, we just kinda wanted to disrupt it and mess with it and have different interpretations of what these things can be,” Silvestre said.

The project, which you can see here on Facebook, was very much a community effort. The artists enlisted their friends, who brought their own props, and they hope to work on the project more this summer. The end goal is perhaps to create a set of cards to be used to help fundraise for queer issues. Because as Silvestre says, she and her co-creators are not artists after all, they just had a great idea and made it happen.

Follow Sara Inés Calderón on Twitter @SaraChicaD

[Photo Courtesy Jotería]

What looks to be an amazing interactive exhibit will begin on April 16 at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in Los Angeles, California. The exhibit is called “LA Starts Here!” and takes a look at Mexican and Mexican-American identity in Los Angeles. Who’s coming with me?! Here’s a snippet from the website:

The first of its kind in approach and scope, LA Plaza’s inaugural exhibition, LA Starts Here!, examines Mexican and Mexican American history and identity in Los Angeles. Iconic artifacts, one-of-a-kind interactive experiences, and captivating films reveal the region’s rich and often unknown history as a multicultural project from its very beginnings. Visitors of all backgrounds are encouraged to think critically about the shaping of cultural and national identity in an increasingly diverse world.

Exploring the city’s origins from a dusty outpost of the Spanish Empire to a contemporary global metropolis, visitors encounter the range of historical identities that have emerged in Los Angeles, become aware of the events and conditions by which these identities were shaped, and appreciate the complexity of the lives that have created a shared history. Identity is revealed as fluid, evolving, and sometimes even contradictory. As the voices of the past and present intermingle, history’s echoes are heard shaping today and the future.

It seems to be an exciting exhibition, if you ask me, so I’m planning to go as soon as I get out to Cali! For more info, check out the website.

[Photo By crabers.crab]