On the finish of her first summer time camp, 11-year-old Naíma Arteaga was nervous concerning the ultimate group exercise she was required to do: sing in a rock band and carry out onstage in entrance of a big viewers.
The duty sounds ludicrous, however Arteaga wasn’t at any atypical camp — she was at Chicxs Rockerxs South East Los Angeles (pronounced cheek-ecks roh-kerr-ecks), the place women, trans, and gender-fluid youth study to play devices, create bands with each other, write unique songs and carry out dwell for a crowd throughout a showcase, all in simply the span of every week.
“Going into that camp I was honestly a little bit more on the shy side,” Arteaga, who’s now 18 and a camp volunteer, mentioned. “I was nervous about singing, I just didn’t feel comfortable with it, but by the end of the week it really helped me boost my confidence, and it really helped me come out of my shell.”
A photograph exhibit of Chicana punk bands fashioned by way of the CRSELA program on the South Gate Museum.
(Michael Blackshire/Los Angeles Instances)
Former campers like Arteaga are celebrating the rock camp on Saturday with a gap reception on the South Gate Museum and Artwork Gallery, the place a particular exhibit on CRSELA shall be on show till Dec. 3. The exhibit highlights a decade of CRSELA’s historical past, with editorial pictures of scholars by way of the years, DIY flyers, camp art work and archival objects representing colourful moments within the youngsters’ musical journeys.
“It’s important to make sure we are using this space to highlight and honor our communities,” Jennifer Mejia, cultural arts coordinator on the South Gate Museum and Artwork Gallery mentioned. “What Chicxs Rockerxs SELA has been doing for 10 years should be celebrated and seen.”
CRSELA started as an thought in 2013 by a nonhierarchical collective of musicians who have been impressed by Portland’s pioneering Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Women and the bigger Women Rock Camp organizations within the U.S. CRSELA grew to become an official nonprofit in 2014.
Museum Cordinator Jennifer Mejia poses for a portrait with Chicxs Rockerxs memorabilia within the background at South Gate Museum.
(Michael Blackshire/Los Angeles Instances)
Like the opposite camps, CRSELA’s mission was to empower younger women by way of musical self-expression, nevertheless, CRSELA sought to make camp extra accessible to low-income households, particularly since different camps required a steep tuition. At CRSELA, donations from the general public cowl the prices of this system for every scholar.
“Chicxs Rockerxs is tuition-free, and when you have these fees it does deter people, so [rock camp] was something that they definitely wanted to take to their communities,” Priscilla Hernandez, an organizer with CRSELA, mentioned.
The camp additionally needed to make the expertise extra inclusive for traditionally disenfranchised neighborhoods all through South L.A. This appealed to Hernandez, who as a teen in 2013, obtained a scholarship to attend a Women Rock Camp in one other metropolis. She had a constructive expertise however says she was cognizant of the evident undeniable fact that few campers shared her background.
“I definitely didn’t see a lot of people who looked like me there,” Hernandez mentioned.
After reaching the age restrict on the Women Rock Camp, Hernandez puzzled what to do subsequent. She heard about CRSELA and felt aligned with its values, so she determined to hitch in 2017 as a volunteer, educating bass to college students. She finally grew to become an official core organizer, a “Comx” (pronounced cohm-ecks) as their group calls them, a gender-neutral model of the Spanish phrase “Comadre,” which interprets to “godmother.”
Miles Recio, from left, Priscilla Hernandez, Angie Barrera and Vikki Gutman pose on the South Gate Museum.
(Michael Blackshire/Los Angeles Instances)
“The message resonated with me a lot when I was aging out of [Girls Rock] camp, [CRSELA] wanted to incorporate a lot of things about Latinidad and pieces that were in Spanish, and that was something that wasn’t part of the other camps,” Hernandez mentioned.
Programming for the South East L.A. camp goes past music schooling. The youngsters participate in a variety of inventive workshops to precise their creativity, equivalent to zine-making and screen-printing. Throughout lunch, they’re visited by drag queens and native bands who carry out for the children to offer play and leisure.
College students getting into this system are divided into two teams: the Bidi Bidis and the Bom Boms. The monikers for the 2 classifications pay homage to the music “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom” by Tejano legend Selena Quintanilla. The Bidi Bidis consist of children ages 8 to 11 whereas the Bom Boms are ages 12 to 17. When Arteaga joined CRSELA as a scholar in 2017 (the identical yr Hernandez grew to become a volunteer), she was a part of the Bidi Bidis, and though she was joined by youngsters youthful than her, Arteaga mentioned it didn’t diminish the expertise. The band allowed her to find her self-confidence and energy.
“The second that me and my band stepped onstage, I felt like I was a different person,” the previous CRSELA scholar mentioned. “My parents had even told me that they were like, ‘Wow,’ that they had never seen me like that before. I don’t know what happened, I was just doing my thing up there.”
Miles Recio poses for a portrait with Chicxs Rockerxs memorabilia on the South Gate Museum.
(Michael Blackshire/Los Angeles Instances)
This was a breakthrough second for Arteaga, who felt compelled to enroll each summer time thereafter. She even tried out the drums, which she ended up loving a lot that she by no means stopped taking part in them. In 2023, she reached her ultimate yr as an eligible camper. Resolved to profit from it, she made what she says is her “best” band — a punk act along with her cousin, a fellow Bom Bom — however her commencement from this system was bittersweet, and Arteaga admits she cried instantly after the showcase.
“I loved the camp so much, I didn’t want that feeling to end, I’m glad that I still get the opportunity to go back as a volunteer, but it was very heartbreaking to me,” she mentioned.
On the tenth annual camp this previous July, Arteaga accomplished her first yr as a volunteer band coach with the Bidi Bidis, the identical group she began out with seven years in the past. She hopes to re-create her camper expertise for others and proceed to propagate CRSELA’s work in L.A.
“It changed my life and it’s had such a big impact for me. I feel like it’s so important to keep [CRSELA] around because a lot of stuff goes on in the world and you just never know what’s happening in someone’s home or in their own community, it’s a way to get away from all of that and a way to escape reality,” Arteaga mentioned. “This is the perfect place for people who want to learn more about themselves, learn more about music, get to know people. It’s an amazing place for anybody to be at.”