The Ofrenda Community Project, Nia’s Reflection

A collaboration between the Museum & WriteGirl

Community voices within Museum exhibits bring added value, perspectives, and spirit.  In partnership with WriteGirl, a creative writing and mentoring organization that promotes creativity and critical thinking, the Community Engagement team at the Museum created The Ofrenda Community Project.  Participants received at-home storytelling kits anchored in the ofrenda or altar located in the Becoming Los Angeles exhibition.  WriteGirl youth selected an inspiration object in the ofrenda that they felt drawn to and created a memory map based on that object to explore connections and meaning in their personal experiences.  They then crafted their own object to add to the ofrenda and developed a creative writing piece derived from the memory map activity.

Nia's inspiration piece, pictured below, is the Tree of Origin, which represents life, growth, and wisdom.  This photo holder includes images of prominent Angelenos such as Charles Lummis who was an activist for Indigenous communities, Abel Stearns an important landowner in L.A.,  and Harris & Sarah Newmark one of the founders of the Los Angeles Public Library.

MEET NIA, 17 YEARS OLD FROM WEST HILLS, CALIFORNIA 

Nia is a Junior at El Camino Real Charter Highschool in L.A., where she is a member of the BSU (Black Student Union) and French Club.  For the past three years, she has been participating in WriteGirl, a writing organization for teenage girls in L.A.  She has published her poem “I hear Coyotes” in their 2019 anthology book, “This Moment”.  Nia is currently working on her first novel, a modern-age fantasy story about six friends.  She hopes her novels will one day be published and inspire many other people.  She wants to acknowledge her weird, dramatic, and inspirational family.  To her loud Chinese mother, her strong Black father, her crazy and brave older brother, and her wild little brother; she thanks them for pushing her and loving her every day.

I was inspired by the ofrenda object that resembles a family tree, called the “Tree of Origin.” It made me think about my Chinese and African American ancestry and my own unique family trees. I thought about the two trees at my house, the lemon and orange, and how they are so different, so I decided to have my ofrenda creation be the two trees with items representing my two ancestries underneath: a set of broken chains for my African American side, and some pieces of gold with a pick-axe for my Chinese side. When I was jotting down ideas for my piece, I thought about how my two family trees resemble each other, so I had the poems mirror each other in format, theme, metaphor, and perspective. You can read this poem one tree at a time or even from left to right from one tree to another tree.

Family Trees

*Kwai Nui: This means “bad girl” or “naughty girl” in Chinese

Nia documents the making of her ofrenda object