InnerCity Struggle Collection

Title: InnerCity Struggle Collection

Dates: 1985-2017

Collection Number: 2015.009

Creator/Collector: Luis Sánchez María Brenes InnerCity Struggle Los Angeles Unified School District

Extent: 11.71 linear ft.

Repository: California State University, Los Angeles

Abstract: InnerCity Struggle (ICS) works with youth and community residents to promote safe, healthy and non-violent communities in the Eastside of Los Angeles. ICS began as a project of Proyecto Pastoral at Dolores Mission and launched as its own independent community organization in 1994. The founding Executive Director María Teixeira, led the organization forward based on a vision of building and promoting a safe, healthy and non-violent community in Boyle Heights by organizing and mobilizing community members to achieve that mission. As co-founder of InnerCity Struggle, Luis Sánchez launched the youth organizing component United Students and the parent organizing component Familias Unidas.

Language of Material: English

Access is available by appointment for Cal State LA student and faculty researchers as well as independent researchers.

Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the researcher.

InnerCity Struggle Collection. California State University, Los Angeles

InnerCity Struggle (ICS) works with youth and community residents to promote safe, healthy and non-violent communities in the Eastside of Los Angeles. ICS began as a project of Proyecto Pastoral at Dolores Mission and launched as its own independent community organization in 1994. The founding Executive Director María Teixeira, led the organization forward based on a vision of building and promoting a safe, healthy and non-violent community in Boyle Heights by organizing and mobilizing community members to achieve that mission. As co-founder of InnerCity Struggle, Luis Sánchez launched the youth organizing component United Students and the parent organizing component Familias Unidas. The conditions and needs that InnerCity Struggle worked to address included high unemployment and poverty rates and high levels of gang violence in the community. ICS organizes youth and families in Boyle Heights, unincorporated East Los Angeles, El Sereno and Lincoln Heights to work together for social and educational justice and provides positive after-school programs for students to become involved in supporting their schools to succeed. InnerCity Struggle works with high school students through United Students campus clubs at Roosevelt, Garfield, Esteban Torres, Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez Learning Center, Wilson and Lincoln high schools. These clubs demand equitable opportunities and educational justice to ensure that all students graduate and attend college. InnerCity Struggle also engages thousands of Eastside voters during critical election cycles to ensure they have all the information to make educated decisions at the ballot box. ICS has registered thousands of new voters and trained community residents to engage in Get-Out-The-Vote efforts. ICS staff and youth participants recognize the importance of youth programs in Boyle Heights that link quality of life, violence prevention and higher education. Since 1994, ICS has organized thousands of parents and students to demand education reform to improve life opportunities of the youth from East Los Angeles.

The materials in the InnerCity Struggle Collection (ICS) were created in1987-2017. The bulk of this collection contains newspaper articles that include narrative surrounding InnerCity Struggle, higher education, youth movements, and the greater Los Angeles. Publications in form of journals, newsletters, programs also serve as a bulk of the collection. Journals and newsletters are not necessarily published by InnerCity Struggle instead there are resources that InnerCity Struggle used in their personal library. Other materials include youth programming materials, student writings, photographs, newspaper clippings and graduation sashes. The collection also includes ephemera related to its youth activist component with items such as posters, buttons, t-shirt and a commemorative ICS anniversary lock. Materials represented in this collection are the first accession of the collection. The collection was donated by the InnerCity Struggle organization in two accessions in 2015 and 2016.