Breathing In LA: Cesar Chavez and Photography for Sport: Telling our Stories

The following post is from YouthNoise Play City—a community dedicated to changing the world through sports and play. PLAY ON!

In Honor of Cesar Chavez
I remember back in the day my brother coming home and giving my mother an earful about buying grapes. At school he had learned of the great grape boycott that Cesar Chavez was instrumental in leading. Many of the organizing strategies he used--boycotts, marches fasts, strikes--were all huge to people like myself and my brother who would learn a life lesson: The stories of our people's struggle are powerful! We have to share them! Now when I say people, I mean on a very broad level, humanity, but I also mean more specifically, people of color, because their history is also our history.

Classroom Mural at CSUN (photo taken in 2007)

February 2009, march against anti-immigrant practices in Riverside, Ca.

It was World Water Week last week and so I've been covering the work of the CLEAN Car Wash Campaign in Los Angeles, California (both here and here). CLEAN often uses the boycott as a strategy for organizing workers and gaining support for their cause. It was the boycott that lured me to their work. I later heard of the environmental issues related to car washes and the horrible conditions under which car wash workers work. That is what has kept me on this story -- the revelation of something new under the sun.

The present moment is all we have. And how we navigate this crazy mixture of time and space is important for determining how the future unravels. A year ago, few were aware that car wash workers were earning less than minimum wage, working long hours often without a break, and being exposed to hazardous conditions. The CLEAN Campaign, like Chavez during the sixties, was instrumental in bringing our people's story to the forefront of national news.

Boycott at Vermont Hand Wash, Hollywood Ca. 2009

Capturing our Stories: Revealing our Present to Change our Future
People and organizations like this, and there are many, are our examples to follow. Chavez and CLEAN remind me why I've undertaken videography and also photography. It's my contribution to humanity, my movement in the vast world of movements. Now some readers are international in their interests and political scope, others are focused on sports, and still others are concerned with a myriad of issues ranging from gender equality to animal rights.

So I say, go out and capture our stories, bring them to the world, out in the open. But make them substantive! Bring something to light, reveal something about our present or past that isn't already known or isn't well known, and know that it's that kind of storytelling that makes the waves, which last for generations. It's that kind of action that lures people to a cause. It's that kind of capturing that changes peoples lives.

Murals at CSUN (photo taken 2007)

The Sport of Photography: How I Contribute
I consider photography a sport -- one of my sports. Like a marathon walker, I've been in the rain during a long march, trying to keep my camera dry, walking for miles and capturing the struggle around me. I've shot in makeshift studios, trying to use the best lighting technique, the subject's best seating and standing position, and the subject's better side--all the while sweating up a small storm. I've arched my back and bent my knees in weird configurations all for the sake of getting that different angle, a better composition, or to expose the subject in a distinct way.

Hallway mural, CSUN (photo taken, 2007)

From athletes to artists: One and the Same
I practice snapping photos religiously, like a late night free-throw shooter in the park, I take aim at everything around me so I can become a better storyteller, I shoot for the goal of capturing our stars--unnamed heroes doing heroic work--I focus on what seems small but is truly large, all in the name of developing and contributing to that wonderful fabric we call humanity.