"ENCUENTRA TU VERDADERA VOZ"
by Judy Baca, Carlos Rogel, and Farhad Akhmetov
Born in Chicago in 1954, the only daughter in a family of six brothers, Sandra Cisneros often felt isolated as a result, and the family's constant migration between Mexico and the United States gave her a sense of not belonging to either. Drawing on her experiences with cultural hybridity, misogynism, and economic inequality, Cisneros burst onto the literary stage in 1983 with her first novel, "The House on Mango Street," and established herself as a key figure in Chicana literature. In 2013 muralist, activist, and co-founder of @SPARCinLA , Judy Baca, partnered with @CarlosRogelArt and Farhad Akhmetov and a team of assistants, creating "Find Your True Voice" for the Sandra Cisneros campus of the Camino Nuevo Charter Academy on Mohawk St in Los Angeles. CNCA is a 20-year-old education initiative in the Latinx communities of MacArthur Park and Echo Park, engaging the community in a program that has led to students graduating college at three times the national average. @judy_baca