Monterey Continuation High School students Christopher Lizarraras, center, and Jose Herrera, right, participate in a play at the Plaza de la Raza’s Margo Albert Theater. Photo by: Katie Falkenberg, Los Angeles Times.

In some neighborhoods across the country, art —rather than the written word — is often a better way for kids to relate to the world around them. Murals painted on the sides of buildings and other structures tell tales that sometimes are too painful or vivid to recount in poetry or through narratives. Now, muralists like CSUN’s Chicano/a Studies faculty member Yreina Cervantez are helping high school students communicate in a way they never imagined — by using their work as a conduit.

Cervantez was one of two muralists brought in by About…Productions to help students from Monterey Continuation High School find their voices. After intense meetings with Cervantez and muralist Barbara Carrasco (as well as Wayne Healy and David Botello, founders of East Los Streetscapers, a public art studio), students wrote one-act plays about the murals.

“It’s very humbling because we’re still working with the community and the youth,” Cervantez told the Los Angeles Times. The CSUN professor continued to say that she liked the artistic license the students took with pieces of her story. One of the main goals the About…Productions group was to get across to the students the idea of symbolism, like the jaguar that reoccurs in Cervantez’s work. The students took this and worked it into their plays, making them re-think what they used to take for granted.

For more: East L.A. Murals Come to Life in School Plays [L.A. Times]