Threads of Poems from Youth in Boyle Heights, East Los Angeles


The homeless have no home but the streets. Some mistakes happened to make them go down that path where one day you're homeless physically and the next your homeless mentally...

You know your life is only borrowed. Anybody can take it away from you. You could die in all sorts of ways. I am afraid of going to sleep and never waking up. I don't want to die in a young age, in a cage; Don't want to die for a dumb reason. I'm also scared of losing my whole family...

Hey, I was close to death. Death took my brother, but he's still in my life. So, I write the truth, not the fakeness of this world. I am blinded, but I stay awake. My eyes are closed but I could still see you. My poetry's blinding, but still I could write it...
Sometimes I feel different and new; like I have shed my old skin for a new one.
One with no scars and no bruises, one that is true and real. These familiar smiles, gentle voices and sounds, take me home; where I really belong,
My heart.
 

Voices of Youth, Voices of Community
The Whole Story, the Hidden Hope

Dear Friends,

Countless times I have told the story called The Half-Boy and anticipated the moment when he meets an elder at the edge of the village. Like any young person I've ever known, the half-boy has struggled to find a moment of wholeness and the elder is wisely waiting for just such an occurrence. They meet along the edge where things torn apart come together and enter the village dancing, young and old bringing the rhythm and art of wholeness to the village again. For many years and through many struggles, the image of young and old finding the dance of culture again has been the 'hidden hope' within Mosaic.

Mosaic is based in the relentless study of the myths and traditions of many cultures and the conviction that each young person is poetic by nature and has an evocative voice that can be found and should be. The inner voice is also known as the innate genius, expressing it helps awaken the genuine purpose in each young life.

For Mosaic, 'youth work' does not refer to an aspect of sociology or a certain segment of the population. Rather, we mean the work of finding the 'youth in the young' and thereby revealing visions trying to be born into the culture. 'Youth work' also means the work of making an uncommon ground where youth and elders can reweave cultural fabrics with new threads and old knowledge.

In the old way of seeing, culture is continuously remade through the visions of youth and the dreams of the elders. Thus, Voices of Youth involves a rediscovery of mythology, an elucidation of psychology and an array of arts and practices that range from making poems to meditation. Working with youth and finding elders becomes a path of 'living philosophy' that winds through streets and schools and prisons with the aim of reinventing culture.

The young and the old making culture together is an old story, now we are making the old story new through the modern vehicle of film. We are capturing the story of Mosaic as it wanders through Native American reservations, in and out of prisons and detention centers, down the streets of America's ghettos and barrios, through the halls of higher education and out to remote, nature camps where the modern refugees gather.

We want to invite you further into the story by asking you to support the telling of this old and new again tale through the Voices of Youth. Your support is greatly appreciated by everyone at Mosaic and by young people in endangered communities around the country with stories waiting to be heard.

Peace and blessings,

Michael J Meade
Founder / Director Mosaic Multicultural Foundation

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