The Brief

"I sought out community college to grow my nascent interest in art and journalism."

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I had been thinking about making my own career change for over five years.

Some friends and I formed a group to discuss the book “Designing Your Life.” In that moment, our past decisions would no longer dictate our lives. We brought the design concept of iteration into practice, ready to learn from trial and error.

It took me time. I was terrified of leaving a respectable job and financial stability, even though I had lost a sense of vitality in my work. I sought out community college to grow my nascent interest in art and journalism.

I could be a student again — make mistakes, ask dumb questions, and dare to imagine a different future.

This is a project about six people, who by way of community college have made — or started — a leap of faith.

A leap of faith.

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Investment banker > aspiring dietician

Rita Kwan worked in investment banking for 15 years. People in Hong Kong considered it a good job for the salary and the benefits.

Buildings and cuisine in Hong Kong

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"I didn’t really like that at all, the so-called ‘money-making’ industry.”

She was busy with work and she didn’t have the time to think about her future.

She thought it was “normal to suffer in my job, in my life.”

Kwan’s dad was fighting cancer and she thought his poor diet might have hurt his health. In Hong Kong, she saw people eating unhealthy junk food.

She realized the importance of what one consumes.

“We have to protect ourselves by raising our awareness of what we put into our bodies.”

In Hong Kong, the opportunity to make career changes seemed limited right after high school.

Kwan came to the U.S. and took an English as a second language class at Mt. San Antonio College, where she took a personality test. Her result pointed toward a “helping” career, like a teacher or a counselor.

"If they want to garden, they can garden. They have the health to do that, instead of staying in bed all day long."

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“I feel like I am a living person, instead of a person who doesn’t have a dream or who doesn’t know what I want to do.”

After taking nutrition courses at Mt. San Antonio College, Kwan plans to work full-time to afford the cost of a master’s degree in nutrition.

“Life is not about how long you live. It’s about the quality, when somebody’s healthy and able to do whatever they want to do. Like if they want to garden, they can garden. They have the health to do that, instead of staying in bed all day long.”

Khaokham enjoyed being a jeweler, having her own creative line and her artistic pieces in galleries.

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Jeweler > geography student

Candace Khaokham enjoyed being a jeweler, having her own creative line and her artistic pieces in galleries. “It was really rewarding and fun stuff, but it’s very taxing on your body and your eyesight because everything is so small.”

She realized she wasn’t earning enough.

“I’m getting older. I need to start thinking about a regular health care plan and savings.”

“I was looking at where people are needed in the future, you know?” A friend said there was a demand for people in the geography profession.

Khaokham attended Pasadena City College “without really knowing what I wanted to do when I started. I took my cultural geography class. I was like, ‘I love this class.’” She liked how geography is a study of “where we are, who’s around us, and how we got here.”

1939 Home Owners Loan Corporation color-coded and rating system of Los Angeles neighborhoods

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At community college in her early 40s, Khaokham excelled with a 3.9 GPA. “I wasn’t a great student in high school or my early teens, but this time I was like I’m gonna do good in school.”

“I wanted to have a job to be kind of helpful too, like if I could make a map that would help with land reclamation, a project on the history of redlining, redistricting, or gerrymandering.”

Adrián Huerta, education professor at University of Southern California

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Truck driver > aspiring occupational therapist

Before he had a stroke, Bladon was working as a truck driver for seven years. The job was stressful. He was working 14-hour days, five days a week, and he neglected his health.

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Before he had a stroke, Barri Bladon was working as a truck driver for seven years. The job was stressful. He was working 14-hour days, five days a week, and he neglected his health. “I ended up ballooning to like 330 pounds.”

“I didn’t have an education beyond high school. Being a truck driver was what I could do to make a decent salary.”

After the stroke, the doctor painted a bleak future for Bladon, pointing to statistics for African Americans. Bladon felt like the doctor was insensitive — his words causing more harm than good. Instead of feeling defeated, Bladon determined to get better.

During his rehabilitation process, he “met some incredible occupational therapists,” and decided to become one himself, starting with going back to school.

After his stroke, during his rehabilitation process, Barri “met some incredible occupational therapists,” and decided to become one himself.

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“I was afraid that I wasn’t gonna be able to make it through school because I hadn’t been in years, especially having a lesion on my brain.” Bladon hadn’t taken a standardized test in years. He had no idea how many courses he might need.

“Once I got through my first semester at El Camino, I felt more confident. I would get confident with each semester.”

He also found confidence by testing out other classes, like in radiology. He says, “Don’t be afraid to try something if you think you might be interested in it, especially at the community college level.”

Bladon wanted to complete his education as fast as possible. He recommends prospective students “do your own research” on what classes are required to transfer to a university — meeting with the university counselor, for example, can help. He met with a few different guidance counselors, but found only one who was particularly helpful, who saved him from taking unnecessary courses.

Bladon’s goal is “as a practitioner, I want to show people of color that there is representation in the field because the majority of the patients that we serve are Black and brown.”

Pamela Hsiung

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Wealth management client associate > aspiring UX/UI designer 

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Pamela Hsiung, who had been working for a wealth management company for seven years, began to work from home.

Pamela started by taking the Sketching for Design class at Pasadena City College.

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“When you’re working remotely, you’re really reduced to just the essence of the work you do. You really just sat with the work.”

“I realized all the fun parts of work were with my co-workers.” Hsiung says she had to make a career change.

As the eldest daughter of immigrant parents, she felt family expectations led her to study finance. Hsiung wanted to pivot and pursue a more creative career in design.

“I did my homework,” she says. “I realized a lot of professors at accredited universities were teaching at community colleges for a fraction of the price.”

She started by taking the Sketching for Design class at Pasadena City College. “In the beginning everyone is really lost, but maybe the second, third week you start to get the handle of thinking a little more creatively. That’s when I realized that as long as I break these steps down into bite-sized pieces, I’ll be able to digest them and inch forward.”

“I was doing something that I really enjoyed and I had never felt that when I was working in finance.” Hsiung liked creating something of her own. 

If Hsiung wasn’t being cautious, “I would love to be in something that was just purely art related.” She says the design field she’s pursuing is “still a business job.”

“I think it’s still scary. I’m not done with my portfolio, and I am moving into a completely different field. I know the tech industry isn’t great right now. I just have to persevere, and I will eventually make it.”

Physical therapy student > chef

“Career change is pretty evident for especially my generation of millennials. We all grew up kind of like on ‘you’re supposed to do this career, stick with it for like 40 plus, 50 years, retire and then that’s it.’ People are realizing you can do so many different things.”

Marie Manalo graduated from Cal State Northridge in kinesiology — the study of human movement — and began a physical therapy program.

“We were doing water exercises with clients. I was standing there holding my client in the water and I was like, ‘wow, I really don’t want to do this. I either make this change now or I commit and figure it out later.’”

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“We were doing water exercises with clients. I was standing there holding my client in the water and I was like, ‘wow, I really don’t want to do this. I either make this change now or I commit and figure it out later.’”

Manalo’s dad had been a sous chef and her grandma’s cooking had a strong influence on her, so she decided to look into culinary school.

Someone told her that L.A. Trade-Tech has a top culinary program. “And I wasn’t going to spend a crap ton of money going to Le Cordon Bleu or something private.”

Manalo’s dad had been a sous chef and her grandma’s cooking had a strong influence on her, so she decided to look into culinary school.

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“It’s really brave to change your career,” Manalo says, adding that not all families encourage people to change course when they choose. Manalo’s mom supported her doing what would make her happy.

The “culinary (industry) is pretty freaking intense, like mentally and physically,” Manalo says. Every day someone would shout or scream at her.

She said she was so focused on learning that she had a set of blinders on and did not notice the inappropriate behavior. She also worked 14 to 16-hour days and went three years without taking a vacation.

Manalo has stepped away from the restaurant industry now. She feels burnt out. “I think people need to understand too as you grow older the way you feel about life is gonna change.”

While the journey was worth it, along the way Manalo learned something about herself that is informing her next steps.

“I thought I was gonna regret changing, but once I was in it, I was in it. Now it’s like 10 plus years later and I still don’t regret.”

“I’m trying to find that, like, unicorn job that has everything — work-life balance, intensity, passion, like all that wrapped into one. And it’s really, really hard right now to find something like that.”

Archaeologist > nurse

Jane Mitchell worked as an archaeologist for nearly a decade.

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“I loved archaeology but I needed to make more money so that I could support myself and the family that I wanted to have one day,” Jane Mitchell says. She worked in the field for nearly a decade.

She considered continuing in archaeology in different ways. Getting a master’s degree and teaching and publishing, or working in a museum, for example.

She weighed the potential outcomes of different routes. Then, she decided to become a nurse.

For her, nursing was “the most practical, stable job you could probably find.” She said she would go from studying human remains to the living.

Making the change was “like jumping off a cliff into the water. ‘Am I really gonna start making this change? Start telling people that I’m totally turning my life around. What am I doing?’”

Making the change was “like jumping off a cliff into the water."

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Classes for nursing can be in high demand, but she enrolled in physiology and anatomy prerequisites at Pasadena City College.

Jane Mitchell

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Mitchell said she was closer to her professor’s age.

“I had to drop any amount of pride I had to ask people sometimes younger than me, ‘how do you do this?’”

At the same time, her life experience gave her confidence to ask questions. “I feel like a lot of students don’t ask questions at all. Maybe they’ll text a question.”

Mitchell says she did tons of research on how to become a nurse.

“Do your research. Make sure you have a clear path of how you’re gonna do it, how long it might take you so you can just be ready for it and not get stressed out about surprises along the way.”

How we made this story

This story was originally written and illustrated as a physical zine. The zine includes everything captured in this story: Advice from career counselors, questions to ask yourself when considering a career change, and hand-painted illustrations.

Want to learn more about how we put this together? Check out our Medium post.

If you have any questions about the project, or would like to learn about other print products related to higher education we have available, please reach out to associate engagement producer Adriana Pera at apera@scpr.org.

The hot weather continues for the rest of the week here in Southern California.

Today's highs are not much different than yesterday. Temperatures along the L.A. and Orange County coast are going to stay in the 70s with highs up to 78 degrees likely further south.

For the valley communities, temperatures are going to reach the mid-80s to low 90s. Up to 95 degrees is possible for the warmest areas of the Inland Empire.

And in Coachella Valley, we're looking at temperatures again in the 100s with highs up to 109 degrees.

There's no one-size-fits-all approach for choosing a preschool because, let's face it, every family has different needs, and those needs will shape your choices.

In Los Angeles County alone, there are about 9,000 licensed early care and education providers. Among them, there is plenty to consider, such as cost, distance, curriculum, classroom size, hours, after-school care and more, leaving many families overwhelmed and confused by the choices.

On top of that, demand is high — and wait lists can be long — which adds more stress for families looking to lock down options quickly and early.

This guide is meant to help you figure out what your preschool options are for your 2- to 4-year-olds – and how to determine the best program for your family.

As you dive into this guide, remember to trust your gut! You're your child's first teacher and you ultimately know what's best for them.

What is preschool, anyway? How is it different from childcare, and how does it work?

Childcare is an umbrella term that covers all of the early care and education systems that serve infants, toddlers and preschool aged children, said Debra Colman, Director of Office for the Advancement of Early Care and Education at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

That includes daycare, nursery school, preschool, transitional kindergarten, family home providers and childcare centers.

Preschools are a subset of childcare that are more structured programs primarily serving children 3 to 4 years old. They typically provide a curriculum-based program — often incorporating play — on what the California Department of Education outlines as the domains of early learning:

• Social and emotional development 
• Language and literacy  
• Math 
• Science 
• Physical development 
• Health 
• History–social science 
• Visual performing arts 

All in all, both childcare and preschools serve dual purposes: caring for children while parents are working, attending school or looking for a job, and providing early learning opportunities.

Do all Californians have access to preschool?

Here's the good news: California has invested a lot of resources to help families access preschool, regardless of income, background, where they live or immigration status as part of Universal Pre-Kindergarten (UPK). That includes transitional kindergarten (TK), the California State Preschool Program and childcare subsidies for family childcare homes and childcare centers.

However, that doesn't mean there's guaranteed space for everybody who needs it. Despite the options, nearly half of young Californians do not receive childcare on a regular basis — 10 or more hours per week — according to a study from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

While this guide is meant to help you understand the preschool landscape in L.A., there are systemic barriers that make it difficult for many families — especially communities of color from low-income backgrounds — to access affordable, reliable and high-quality childcare.

Where are preschools based?

They can be found in lots of different settings, including childcare centers, family childcare homes or elementary schools.

Public vs. private preschool — what's the difference?

An easy way to help make sense of the preschool system is to first split the options into two categories: public (free or low-cost) and private (tuition-based).

How to find a public preschool program:

• Search here for a Head Start preschool near you or contact L.A. County’s Head Start Referral Agency to learn more: (877) 773-5543.
• Contact your local Resource and Referral Network, also known as R&R (more information about this below).
• Your local school district can help you find which schools offer TK.

Private preschools are tuition-based, privately owned businesses. They typically run in a home or commercial building.

Each preschool provider's fee will vary. Full-time care for preschoolers ranges between $9,000 and $24,000 a year across California counties, with costs rising.

There’s a variety of private preschools to choose from, both in childcare centers and family homes:

• Religious or faith-based programs 
• Specialized educational approaches (Montessori, Waldorf, Reggio Emilia)  
• Parent co-ops  
• Language immersion programs  
• Private TK  
• Play-based preschools 

No matter what preschool you choose, experts say it’s worth considering your child’s social and emotional development in a childcare setting, as it plays a major role in school readiness and academic achievement and can even affect their well-being in adulthood.

How to get help paying (step-by-step)

The bad news: Securing a spot can be challenging due to the limited number of slots available across the state, leaving thousands of families on long waitlists. The Child Care Resource Center, serving San Bernardino and Northern Los Angeles counties, has over 30,000 people on the waitlist (and growing), for subsidized childcare.

Keep in mind that the programs prioritize families with the lowest incomes.

In 2022, only one in nine of California’s children eligible for childcare actually received services, according to a report from the California Budget & Policy Center.

“Because resources are so limited, we recommend they work with their Resource and Referral agency to get their names on all waitlists for programs that would meet their family needs to give themselves the most opportunity to find a space,” said Donna Sneeringer, president of Child Care Resource Center.

Sneeringer said, “It doesn't hurt to get on the lists early, but it is more about timing of enrollment and available funding.”

Explore employer-based childcare benefits

Some employers offer childcare benefits to offset the costs, including:

• Dependent Care FSA, a pre-tax benefit account to help pay for eligible childcare including daycare, nursery school, preschool and before and after school care. There’s a calculator to help you figure out how much you can save  
• Bonuses, one-time or monthly, to cover childcare costs 
• Reimbursements for childcare expenses 
• On-site care that your employer provides 

Talk to your human resources department or review your benefits package to find out what childcare benefits may be offered.

How to find a preschool

Start the search as soon as possible – even for preschool.

“Especially in Los Angeles, there are a lot of wait lists that can go from six months to two years,” said Chang. “My advice for every single parent is start early, even if you don't know the sex of your baby, even if it might be only 8 weeks.”

Below are a few services that can help you with your search.

Resource and referral agencies

California funds resource and referral agencies, known as R&Rs, to help families find childcare programs, including preschool options.

R&Rs can be utilized by all families regardless of income; however, they’re geared toward helping families from low-income backgrounds find subsidized childcare.

When families contact an R&R, they assess needs and suggest options that match your family’s priorities. For example, if you prefer a preschool near your job that’s a flexible, full-day schedule, they can help with referrals.

L.A. County has multiple agencies that serve different regions.

• Child Care Resource Center (Antelope Valley, San Fernando Valley, Santa Clarita Valley) 
• Children’s Home Society of California (Greater Long Beach area) 
• Connections for Children (West L.A, Santa Monica, Culver City, Torrance, Lomita and the beach cities) 
• Crystal Stairs, Inc. ((South LA, Inglewood, Compton, Gardena, Lynwood, Lawndale & Hawthorne) 
• Mexican American Opportunity Foundation (East LA, Monterey Park, Montebello, Paramount, Bell, South Gate, Huntington Park, and surrounding areas) 
• Options for Learning (San Gabriel Valley, including Pasadena, Monrovia, Alhambra and Baldwin Park) 
• Pathways LA (Metro LA, West Hollywood, Mid-Wilshire, Koreatown, Northeast LA) 
• Pomona Unified School District Child Development (Greater Pomona area, East San Gabriel valley) 

Once you choose a school, they can also help you fill out the application process.

Find your local agency here or call 1-800-KIDS-793.

Online resources

Child Care Choices: A website to help families navigate the vast childcare and education landscape in Los Angeles County.

My Child Care Plan: Do you want to create a plan that fits your family’s needs? This statewide tool offers free, personalized support to help families narrow their options.

Enter your ZIP code, your child’s age, schedule needs — such as full-time, drop-in or after-school care — language preferences and whether your child has special needs. The tool matches families with licensed programs based on their selections.

Winnie, a search system to help families find childcare, including preschools. Each program will be accompanied by a description, photos, tuition fees, licensing status, availability, and more

Upwards, a company that helps families find childcare. Their specialty is working with family childcare providers.

Word-of-mouth

Talk to friends, colleagues, and trusted parent groups about their preschool recommendations.

Tips for choosing a preschool that’s the best fit for your child

And here are some additional considerations to keep in mind based on your tour and observations:

• Based on what you’ve observed, will your child feel safe and cared for here? 
• What setting will your child learn best in? 
• How are adults communicating with children at this preschool?  
• How do teachers communicate with parents on a regular basis about their child’s development and overall growth?  
• How far is the program from your home? What will transportation look like? 

With many preschool options available, Cristina Alvarado of the Child Care Alliance strongly urges parents to research multiple programs and choose one that best suits their child and family’s holistic needs instead of making a decision based solely on income or affordability.

Early intervention and special education services

Your child’s preschool should be able to provide resources for early intervention and special education services.

There are other resources if you need additional support, like California’s regional centers.

With 21 centers statewide, they support people with developmental disabilities, including young children. Find your local center here.

Families should try not to get discouraged when seeking developmental support for their child, said Dr. Karina Agredano, a disabilities consultant with the L.A. County Office of Education Head Start and Early Learning Division. She said there may be some challenges along the way, but stresses that families are not alone.

Agredano also recommended resources such as:

• Help Me Grow LA: A program of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health that connects families with a wide range of services to support their child’s developmental journey, including referrals to regional centers or local education agencies.  
• 211 LA: A hotline for Angelenos looking for special education's services, early intervention, childcare and parenting support, and other resources.  
• Family Resource Centers: These centers help families learn about early intervention and navigate the Early Start system. They partner with regional centers and education agencies. 

“As we always say in early childhood, you're the first teacher for your child. You're also the first advocate for your child,” said Agredano. “So continue to keep moving forward.”

Tell us: What else would you like to know about preschools?

The World Cup kicks off tomorrow but you wouldn’t know it from hotel bookings.

“There is quite a lot of hotel availability throughout the region,” said Jackie Filla, CEO of the Hotel Association of Los Angeles. “Visitor rates are not meeting expectations currently.”

Filla said that when major events come to L.A., organizers and hotels estimate demand for rooms, and hotels commit to having enough rooms to meet that demand through a room block agreement.

L.A. hotels made such an agreement with FIFA around eight years ago, Filla told LAist, but a lot of those rooms are now sitting empty.

Where did the demand go? 

In May, the American Hotel and Lodging Association said that up to 70% of L.A. hotels reported bookings below expectations ahead of the World Cup — a trend happening across the board in World Cup host cities.

The report laid out a few possible reasons, including high fuel prices and “broader geopolitical concerns” that make international fans more reluctant to travel to the United States. The report said domestic travelers are forecasted to outpace international travelers.

Filla added that right now, bookings aren’t just lower than expected for the World Cup — they’re behind usual summer numbers too. That might be because mega-events can deter traditional hotel customers from visiting the city.

“There are business conferences and leisure travelers that are not associated with the event that [visiting L.A.] is going to feel unappealing to,” she said.

Not all hotels are feeling the pain, though.

Javier Cano, the Area General Manager for Marriott International in L. A., said that they are “having just about what [they] thought they would” in terms of bookings.

Does this change the promised boost to the economy? 

FIFA has consistently billed the World Cup as an economic boon to host cities.

According to Stafford Nichols, an economist at research and consulting firm Beacon Economics, sports events usually do boost economic activity.

But the spike from the World Cup might not be much bigger than other sports events in L.A.

The World Cup is set to bring in $550 million, he said, while next year’s Super Bowl is expected to generate about $470 million. In contrast, Nichols said the Olympics could generate “many billions.”

Still, the effects of low hotel bookings could reverberate across the economy. Part of the predicted income number comes from “direct spending” on things like hotel rooms, which Nichols said accounts for 40–50% of tourist spending in L.A.

Some of the projection also comes from “spillovers,” like increased income for a hotel’s business partners (for example, their preferred laundromat).

With hotels underbooked, both of these effects might be dampened.

How will hospitality workers be affected? 

Kurt Petersen, a co-president of the union Unite Here Local 11, told LAist that mega-events usually create a surge of employment.

This time around, he said workers are seeing fewer employment opportunities, especially in downtown L.A. hotels.

“The hope was that FIFA would bring work to all our members. That has not come to pass yet,” Petersen told LAist.

He said having fewer shifts during the World Cup means that workers may need to make “tough choices.”

“It’s difficult to live in Los Angeles [...] having less work means making harder choices about how to make your dollar go further,” he said.

What about other lodging options, like Airbnbs? 

Isabelle Goldberg, a communications manager for Airbnb, wrote in a statement to LAist that “the FIFA World Cup is set to be the biggest hosting event in Airbnb’s history.”

As of April, the most popular L.A. rental locations were Central Hollywood, North Hawthorne, and West Hollywood.

Bookings in Inglewood, near SoFi stadium, are also on-pace with expectations, according to James T. Butts, mayor of Inglewood.

Butts said that Inglewood’s “vigorous” short-term rental population is a “benefit accrued to residents from Inglewood becoming a sports destination city.”

But others point to implications of strong short-term rental bookings for the traditional hospitality sector.

Filla said, “when you flood the market with new Airbnbs, who [...] don’t have insurance requirements, regulatory requirements, a staff of people who live in Los Angeles that they need to support, that’s concerning for us.”

She said that hotels are still hoping for a last-minute bookings boost.

“I think folks are waiting to see who’s going to play in some of these matches, and that will dictate potential new bookings.”

Los Angeles is hosting eight tournament games, including a quarter-final match on July 10.

Los Angeles graffiti artist Chaz Bojórquez is now widely known as “the Godfather of West Coast graffiti”, and has had his work featured in museums like LACMA, MOCA and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, but was met with rejection when he was first trying to get his work shown in museums.

He’d studied at the influential Chouinard Art Institute in L.A., and with calligraphy master Yun Chung Chiang, but “ I was trying to get into galleries, and they refused to show my work,” Bojórquez told LAist. The explanation, as recently as the late 1990s, Bojórquez said, was that graffiti “belong[ed] in the streets."

There was also a question of whether Bojórquez’s work — a blend of calligraphy and street writing adopted by L.A. gang culture — should even be considered Chicano.

Bojórquez says that when he approached Sister Karen Boccalero of Self Help Graphics, the famed East L.A. art and cultural center for Latino and Chicano artists that had been around since the early 1970s, about showing his work, Boccalero told him, “ I can't show this because it's anti-Chicano. Chicanism is family, border issues, migration, farm workers, all that. Why [would] I want to show this ‘bad boy’ stuff and undermine what we're doing?”

A change in fortune

'Chino Latino' by Chaz Bojórquez, 2000. Acrylic on canvas, 60 x 72 in.

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Courtesy of The Chicano Collection

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For actor and comedian Cheech Marin — a prominent collector and advocate for Chicano art — the definition of Chicano is less narrow: “ It keeps evolving all the time.”

Marin began collecting Chicano art in the 1980s, and around the year 2000, he called up Bojórquez, ultimately buying a piece of his called “Chino Latino,” featuring a black and white dragon holding letters reading “Los locos de Cali” in its claws.

Explaining the meaning beyond the translation, Bojórquez says, “ We are the crazy ones from California. Not crazy in our head, but crazy about life and crazy about art.”

A reunion for ‘We the People’

Marin included “Chino Latino” in his first art exhibition — “Chicano Visions: American Painters on the Verge,” which traveled to major art museums in 15 U.S. cities between 2001 and 2007 — and also in the new “We the People: Chicano Art in the U.S.A.” exhibition at The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture, which opened at the Riverside Art Museum in 2022.

'A Miracle of the Masses' by Benjamin Muñoz, 2023. Acrylic on carved panel with relief printmaking collage. Gift of Jorge A. Lopez, MD and Samantha Lopez for The Cheech Center Collection of the Riverside Art Museum.

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Courtesy of the artist

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The overarching message of “We the People” — a new exhibition of over 120 works from 61 artists — and of The Cheech, Marin says, is that “Chicano art is American art.”

“ We demand to be spoken of in the same paragraph as every other American, established art.” Having an official inclusion in the Riverside Art Museum — “that stamp of approval” — goes a long way toward achieving that full recognition.

A new relevance

'Hello America,' 2025 by Vincent Valdez. Intaglio gravure with embossed titling, hand-colored in pencil.

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Courtesy of the artist and Cheech Marin

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That the “We the People” opening comes on the heels of the first anniversary of the start of federal immigration raids in Los Angeles, when the “Americanness” of Latino immigrants and even U.S. citizens is still being questioned, is something that Marin and curator Benito Huerta are acutely aware of.

“We the People: Chicano Art in the U.S.A. is a declarative statement,” Huerta writes in his curator’s statement, “that ‘we,’ Chicanos, are part of ‘the people’ of these United States of America.”

“We’ve been here [...] since Mexico, through shifting borders and histories, and now within these United States. Yet, we are still challenged as to where our home resides. Our home is here.”

Those current challenges are reflected in many of the works in the exhibition, including Lalo Alcaraz’s “Summer of ICE (Abandoned Paleta Cart)” from 2026, as well as Joe Peña’s “Rosie’s Tamales” from 2019.

At the same time, the influence of Chicano culture and  L.A-style graffiti continues to spread around the world.

“This art that we do has given me the opportunity to travel all over the world,” Bojórquez says. “I’ve been to over 45 countries, and I'm sure Cheech has been to more. And they embrace us.”

How to see it

“We the People” is open now at The Cheech at the Riverside Art Museum through May 23, 2027. The museum is open every day but Tuesday. Admission is free on Sundays during the summer and during the Riverside Arts Walk (first Thursday of each month).