This, not just daily experience, but also tangible systemic boundary divides privileged residents and visitors from the Latin community who are expected to sustain our economy with low-paying jobs and little to no municipal support, yet are entirely underrepresented and largely ignored and uninvited to the table where decisions are made in shaping our town. 

 

     Our Latin community makes up over 50% in Mammoth’s population, over 80% in our public schools, and yet have zero representation in our town leadership. Without commensurate representation our system of governance ceases to adequately function. Whether the politics of visibility can ensure children have role models they can see in themselves, or that the BIPOC community can trust leaders in town to actually prioritize their interests, something has to change, now.

 

     Many of our Latin community members arrive for the welcomed work and some families are our generational taproots, nourishing town since the 1970’s when Mammoth was yet on its way to becoming incorporated. Many of our Latin community members live with many families under one roof, while new residential buildings and vacation rentals are being built and marketed for second-home owners and for visitors that remain empty for chunks of the year. Many of our Latin community members live without their families, working to send U.S. dollars back to loved ones, while in stark contrast, Mammoth is portrayed as "fun for the whole family"-- for those families allowed to remain whole and participate. Many of our Latin community members keep silent for fear of speaking up to injustices in the workplace or community, that potential loss of income could threaten tenuous support of their family network. Many of our Latin community members recall “Deportation Round-ups”, like Sofia, age 31, who speaks about the insidious fear present in her early and teenage years, while white peers, residents, and visitors never had to consider having their livelihoods uprooted to be deported back to a country whose roots may still be maintained, but not a home anymore in the realest sense of the word. Many of our Latin community members who speak Spanish have little or no have access to potential support, here, because of the underdeveloped and undervalued understanding of the need to translate to varying levels of education.

 

     The list could go on, and many of our Latin community members experience far more inequities than briefly enumerated here. And, many of our Latin community members do experience forms of bridge-building and initiatives that try to dismantle divides. Like one of our Latin community organizers for the project, who wants to remain anonymous in this case study in real fear of potential maltreatment, who, as a now-endangered D.A.C.A recipient, was also a high-school recipient of a scholarship in 2007 for higher education awarded to Latin students. Mammoth also has Mono County Behavior Health that actively seeks to close these gaps for accessible support to wellbeing. 

 

     And yet, those gaps, however complex, still distinctly remain. The work required to close them require an increased focus, to make them known and community engagement to steward the change.

     Not only have these systemic forms of racism and class privilege made understanding limited at best across disparate demographics, but they have become institutionalized and normalized in who lives where, who shops where, and even in the psychology of ourselves, the inhabitants of town. The under-represented voices of our Latin community either are socially-trained into submission from fear or internalized matching of external social under-valuing, or are deemed variably threatening if they speak out. And, of course, the multiplicity of realities in between.

 

     Calling attention to these dynamics is never going to be favorable so long as those with the capacity for change do not share the experience of those asking for it. Until then, the worst case scenarios for speaking out far outweigh the shreds of hope for a meaningfully different community arrangement. By not acknowledging those lived experiences and felt realities of those we share community with, we participate in the perpetuation of normalized prejudice and systems that keep it going. But, by stepping into newer territory and curiosity of recognizing these inequities, we initiate a foundation of awareness and understanding that leads to not only policy change and decision making, but diverse cultural celebration and embrace. This ultimately generates more possibilities for even a single Latin community member to live out their personally-defined best, meaningful, vibrant, and liberated life, rather than societally-defined limits. This, then, amplifies the wellbeing of a whole community as a web and network of well-supported people who have lived, or come to live, work, and create together. This is the seed of the regeneration of ideals and systems that nourish our thriving interconnection as people in relationship with each other, place, and a future culture of Mammoth.

 

     With no central hub or organizing body for the Latin community of Mammoth at large, we, community organizers for the People’s Mural Project, are designing a strategy that creates invitation and safety in the Latin community at a personal level. So as to share their stories of injustices, cultural beauty and inheritances, their ideas & dreams for personal, familial, communal, and future betterment. We see our organizing as twinning endeavors: first collecting narratives as a part of the process for developing the mural with audio storytelling, and secondly, hearing from the people what changes they would like to see that will directly and participatively inform the development of a Latin Social Justice Organization that meets the community needs and develops presence in town leadership.

 

    In introducing the narrative to our visitors and community members through an interactive mural we invite the public to engage in this practice of cultural enrichment and we create avenues for direct support for social justice initiatives. 

      Look out for possible monarch butterflies in the mural to honor the journey of immigration and recognize the challenges and strength needed to fly across countries, or the certain vibrant colors and symbols of a heritage that warms the heart and holds deep wisdom for us all.

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written by Melle North, project curator

edited and reviewed by Latin community members + organizers:

Sofia Flores

Dayean Rios

Gloria Toledo Prieto

Tessa Toledo-Velazquez

& Zak Young, non-Latin, interim project manager