Arts for at-risk youth.

Tucked into a corner of one of Long Beach's more colorful historic buildings is Homeland Neighborhood Cultural Center. Founded in 1989 as a center for cultural preservation for the people of Long Beach's ethnically rich Anaheim Corridor, Homeland provides opportunities in support of artists from traditions centuries old to those who make up contemporary sub-cultures, like those currently arising out of prisons. These artists are frequently highly respected within their own communities, but have received little recognition from non-mainstream culture.

Celebrating a Diverse Community

Since its inception six years ago, Homeland has mounted 37 exhibits. These exhibits have included the nationally recognized "Prison Envelope Exhibit" (Mayor's Award of Excellence, 1993) profiling art drawn by inmates on letters home to families and friends; "Three Generations of a Hmong Family," documenting Hmong music and needlework; "Who You Are I Am," featuring photographs and oral histories of children and their grandparents who live along the Anaheim Corridor; "Images of Iztlan," an exhibit of paintings by self-taught artist Eddie Martinez; and "Pancho Y Villa," acurated show of art work and photographs celebrating the Mexican Revolution.

The mission of the cultural center is to provide accessible artistic outlets to individuals and groups who have traditionally been excluded from existing art establishments. Homeland's staff, participants and volunteers interact with government education and arts institutions to take the Center's projects into mainstream professional and alternative venues. Homeland's artists, writers, and actors have participated in 18 professional poetry readings, produced four plays and five vignettes, published three poetry books and assisted in nine community festivals outside the Center walls. Its writers have taught creative writing in four local schools and two community parks. And its theater troupe, the Homeland Players, produced two children's plays, one with fifth graders from Whittier Elementary School in Long Beach, and another with 20 students in Stanford Middle School's gang-diversion program.

In 1993, at the request of Orange County Juvenile Hall Probation Officer Jeff Burgett, Homeland presented the first exhibit of community artists inside the Hall. Artists spent the day interacting with incarcerated youth, encouraging them to tell their own stories, to change their own lives for the better. "The impact on the kids was phenomenal," wrote Burgett. "With the majority of our population being Chicano, the event was of special significance. Exposure to positive role models from within their own community is so important if these kids are to make changes in their lives."

Housed in an 1,800 square-foot space that was once part of a Ku Klux Klan building, Homeland is located in the most culturally diverse section of the city; residents are of Latino, Laotian, Hmong, Cambodian, Vietnamese, African American, and Caucasian descent. The Center operates year-round, six days per week, offering programs in creative writing, script writing, acting (using pieces written by script writer's workshops), poetry writing, dance, drawing and painting. Homeland also oversees a "Free Wall," a blank canvas on which local aerosol artists paint, re-paint, and paint again. Use of the wall among artists is self-legislated, with "permits" issued from Homeland.

The program operates with approval from the police department's anti-graffiti unit. Piecers, as the artists call themselves, follow specific rules which help to keep the peace with the community and each other.

Recognizing, their importance, Homeland participates in the important community rituals, observances and celebrations that occur throughout the year. Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead), Posadas (traditional Mexican nativity), Hmong New Year, and Cinco de Mayo are observed with shrines, paintings, photographs, food, and dance. In addition, each exhibit or play opening is celebrated with a public reception, where those who shared in putting together an event are recognized for their efforts.

Nuts and Solts

Homeland is operated by the City of Long Beach, Department of Parks, Recreation and Marine. The general fund allocation of $170,850 supports one full-time supervisor (Cultural Program Supervisor Dixie Swift), one contract employee (Theater and Writing Project Coordinator Manazar Gamboa), and 20 hours of clerical and support personnel, along with the building's rent and utilities, phone, postage, office supplies and some basic program materials. Programs get additional support from grants. In the past, Homeland has received grants from the California Community Foundation Brody Grant, California Community Arts/Getty Foundation, Public Corporation for the Arts, the McDonnell Douglas Foundation, the Josephine Gumbiner Foundation, and the Puffin Foundation.

In addition to staff, the Center is aided by a 17-member support committee who have been involved with Center activities for the past five years. Committee members have served as workshop leaders, concerned community members, participants, and experts working in specialized at-risk youth fields. Homeland has also been a party to several cooperative ventures including artist-in-residence projects, multi-cultural art and dance workshops and a People's Art Mural Project depicting guns, violence and healing. Programs are initiated by volunteers or individual artists and, with the help of grants and donations, are staffed and carried out by them.

Homeland is a day-to-day place where persons from cultures that have not previously been understood or appreciated have the opportunity to interact, create, exchange, and work with one another. Together they can see the art and art forms that derive from their rich cultures.

Homeland participants are also able to access the established art communities of Long Beach and Southern California. At Homeland, local gang members, previously incarcerated youth and adults and prison inmates find a place that accepts them, encourages them to tell their stories, listens to them with respect, and helps heal the wounds inflicted by an uncaring society. Each exhibition, play, poetry reading, and workshop brings an opportunity to further understand and appreciate the diversity of creativity and expression that is inherent in each of the local cultures.

In addition, Homeland is seen as a base for many of its participants -- a place to learn the skills necessary to move into the mainstream world. Artists who have taken part in Homeland programs have gone back to school and achieved high school diplomas, GED's and even college degrees. Many even operate their own businesses within the community. With the confidence that comes from acceptance of their art and validation of their person, those with Homeland connections now serve on community committees and speak at City Council meetings; they are becoming activists.

The Staff

Dixie Swift is the cultural program supervisor for the City of Long Beach Department of Parks, Recreation and Marine and is Homeland's founder. She was born and raised locally, graduated from Whittier College, and taught grade school for 10 years. In 1980, she opened Shakti, the first contemporary art gallery in Long Beach. In addition to her work at Homeland, Swift was a part of the City's intensive Cultural Arts Master Plan Steering Committee, was on the Advisory Board for the Pacific Asia Museum and currently sits on the Apsara Gallery (United Cambodian Center) Advisory Board. Swift volunteers for several organizations, helping to write grants and build programs. She is an advocate for incarcerated persons and is a friend to their families. In recognition of her efforts, she received the Public Corporation for the Arts Administrator of the Year award in 1993. In the organization of grassroots arts programs, Swift has no peer.

Manazar Gamboa is the theater arts projects coordinator and co-director of Homeland. Gamboa is a writer with 20 years of professional experience. He has published four poetry books, is included in 10 anthologies, has written four plays and read his work and that of his students in over 300 readings. As coordinator, Gamboa teaches acting, creative writing, script writing and theater technique. He has been instrumental in theater projects at two Long Beach schools and several community park locations. In 1992-93 he was librettist for the Los Angeles Music Center Opera, a project in which he wrote his own opera and worked with youth from four L.A. schools. He has served as editor of Obras Magazine at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center and Chisme Arte Magazine of the LA Latino Writers Association. In addition to his work at Homeland, Gamboa has been a consultant and instructor for L.A. The atre Works, where he lead over 2,500 workshops, over a 14-year period, in LA. juvenile institutions, Chino Men's Prison and Frontera Women's Prison.

A Lasting Presence in the Community

Frequently Homeland has been chosen by individual artists as a site for their community arts grants projects or for their volunteer efforts. Homeland's programs have been greatly enhanced by the opportunities brought by these gifted individuals. Examples include painter Gilbert Lujan, who led a painting workshop; a visual art performance project by artist Kathy Arnold, who took visions of neighborhoods as drawn by residents and cast them by projector onto city walls, accompanied by voice overs describing cherished pieces of their lives; and artist Eddie Martinez, who taught several drawing and painting workshops.

Several collaborations have been initiated to bring a mix of programs to the community. For instance, Homeland is very involved in the Anaheim Street Festival which celebrates its many cultures with a parade, food booths, entertainment and music. In another instance, Homeland participants worked with the Laong Beach Opera to. translate "Carmen" into Cambodian and Spanish while discussing different operatic styles and traditions. And soon, a program of dance will bring together five dance groups of various styles and traditions to teach their methods for one-month periods culminated by a feast of foods from each of the cultures at the end. In addition, Homeland has worked with three other agencies, Centro Shalom, United Cambodian Center and Pan African Art Center to provide arts instructors for classes at each site.

The programs, artists and participants at Homeland are beginning to gain recognition throughout the region. Now that the Center has become rooted in the community, it is beginning to blossom. Exhibits like "Prison Envelope Art: Imagery in Motion" have helped to move art from a subculture into the mainstream. On-going projects like the writer's workshop have provided a release for street-hardened writers, even encouraged them to pursue, or pick up, a lost education.

Through it all, the woman who nurtured that seed--Dixie Swift--knew she was planting in fertile soil. She describes the Homeland area and the role of the Center: "This is the most diverse, poorest and highest crime area in the city. And it's the richest in traditions. Homeland is a voice for this community. Culturally, it's extremely interesting and important to the whole city and to so many people who haven't had a voice before." Now, in less than a decade, those voices are making beautiful music.