With support from the California Arts Council, FRIENDS OF PERALTA HACIENDA HISTORICAL PARK will offer two years of video arts experience/training for diverse low-income teens/young adults (18-24) in Oakland’s Fruitvale. Youth will research, write, shoot, edit and screen films about their own lives and their dynamic community of color.
1. Arts, culture and educational programs for children, teens, young adults and elders year-round. This includes the Oakland day laborers’ theater group performing “Undocumented Heart”.
2. Environmental education with arts integration including stewardship of the commons at Peralta Hacienda, and field trips to regional, state and federal parks, including overnights.
3. Job training and leadership development for high school age youth and young adults in the arts, culture, arts administration and environmental science.
4. Museum and site tours for the public given by diverse community docents who tell their own stories.
5. Commissioning and showing art works by local and regional artists; mounting permanent and changing exhibits of community stories; the focus this year and next is fabricating and installing exhibits that have been developed with East Bay Ohlone people about Ohlone culture and history.
6. Events, festivals, community dialogues, film screenings, food events that amplify diverse local voices, cultures and traditional arts of immigrant and refugee communities and other people of color. We have major cultural festivals annually of the Mayan Mam community, the Mexica (Mexican Indigenous), Khmer ( Cambodians) of Oakland and others, as well as smaller events featuring local arts groups such as the Bushwick Book Club that creates original songs and music, and Pride events with local rappers.
7. Arts- and crafts-based immersive, experiential school field trips tied to CA state curriculum objectives.
8. Oral history interviews; archiving and researching local history, including indigenous history and underrepresented cultures.
9. Civic participation and stewardship through candidates forums, ballot box, and monthly work parties.
10. Ethnobotanical community gardens cultivated by Southeast Asian elders and community feasts for the whole neighborhood with garden produce; reviving traditional landscapes.
11. Food for Fruitvale: Distribute free food six times per month serving 353 families, 630,000 lbs of food annually.

