So I'm happy to to join you. My name is Celina Miranda, and I came to this work really driven from a personal place, I am an immigrant, I am originally from El Salvador. I came to the United States as a child, and know what it's like to grow up low-income, and first-generation college going student my background. My academic background is in social work, and sociology, and education. And for the past ten plus years, I had been working actually in philanthropy, mostly in the areas of education, and education in youth development. And my academic studies actually focused on youth development and organizational theory. And as a result, just about a year and a half ago, I was looking to make a change and move away from philanthropy, and getting back to the work that I'm passionate about which is youth development and community based work. And so that's what brought me to Hyde Square Task Force. We are a youth development organization located in the High Jackson Square area of Jamaica Plain in Boston, Massachusetts, in an area that recently was named the Latin quarter of Boston, which recognizes the Latino history of the neighborhood. And I saw this as a great opportunity to come back, and do what I care about, and to give back to the Latino community, and work with young people that share a lot of my experience as a kid growing up in Santa Ana, California. So we are located in the Latin quarter of Boston, which traditionally or historically, has been a predominantly Latino community, low-income Latino community, mostly of Caribbean backgrounds. In the 60s, actually, It was mainly a Cuban and Puerto Rican, in some Central American started arriving in the 80s with mostly the war actually in El Salvador, so there was some representation of Salvadorians in the area. And then over the years the neighborhood has been changing drastically, rapidly with gentrification, and while it remains a predominantly Latino neighborhood, there's been a growing new population of mostly white professionals that have come to the area. And so it's a very interesting neighborhood with a lot of diversity both ethnic diversity and also economic diversity now. But we are surrounded actually by three different housing developments that provide low-income housing or subsidized housing. So we will continue to be a low-income neighborhood for the most part just due to the concentration of where we are. But definitely recognize that the makeup of the neighborhood has been changing over the years. We were founded back in the 80s by a group of neighbors that came together as a result of what was going on in the neighborhood. In the 80s, the neighborhood saw a rise in violence drug, drug trafficking, and drug use. And as a response to that, the neighbors came together to try to combat or transform the neighborhood into a much more positive place. At that point in time, the High Jackson Square area or the Latin quarter was known as New England's cocaine capital. So definitely there was a big need to do something, and neighbors came together and formed a task force, hence our name, Hyde Square Task Force, and address the issues from various angles. But very early on recognize that young people, there was something about having young people at the center of the work that made a lot of sense, and it at the very early stages of the organization that we became a youth development organization. There were some folks that were just community members, and there was at least one budding organizer in the group. So they were early in their professions, they were involved in community. And one of them actually did have the title of a community organizer in one of our neighboring organizations, nonprofit organizations. But for the most part, they were just interested resident, that's what brought them to the table. They were residents who wanted to do something. For quite a number of years, actually, the area was being talked to talked about as the Latin quarter, but three years ago, our young people embarked on a campaign and an official campaign to get the city to recognize this neighborhood as Boston's Latin quarter. And so they worked together with city councilors, the mayor, and did a campaign to get the council members to recognize the neighborhood as the Latin quarter, which they successfully did and the city now recognizes us as as the Latin quarter. And so we focus on bringing together neighbors around activities, mostly arts based activities, but also some community development, and organizing all focused on the geographic area that we're calling the Latin quarter. It's a few blocks of Center Street, it's a long street that cuts across, it's the main street of Jamaica Plain. And there are at least seven, eight blocks that we are calling the Latin quarter, and interestingly enough, if you actually walk through the neighborhood, you probably can tell the minute you enter the Latin quarter. It's when you start seeing the Cuban restaurants, you start seeing signage in Spanish, and so it's mainly around the main street of the the Center Street, the area where there is a high presence of Latino owned businesses and Latino serving organizations such as ours. Our signature program, which we call to [FOREIGN], or [FOREIGN], or Youth in Action, incorporates three main components, and that are the the arts, education, and civic engagement. So we use the arts as our main vehicle for youth engagement specifically were using Afro-Latin arts, dance music, and theater, as a way of engaging high school youth in our out-of-school time programming. In addition to the arts, however, they also get education support to make sure that they complete high school, and enter post-secondary education, or training successfully up on high school graduation. And then the third element of the work is civic engagement, mostly around youth organizing. So making sure that our young people develop leadership skills, and realize that they have a responsibility to contribute and to give back to their community in the present time. So not thinking about, just to developing young people to become the leaders of the future, but for them being the leaders of today, and being the change makers of today. So our young people engage in various or youth organizing campaigns at any given point. I think about sort of the work that we do and that the way I see us being different or distinct from other youth groups is that we're really committed to bringing those three circles together. So bringing the arts, education, and organizing together, and having them work concurrently to make sure that young people are investing in themselves. But also leave us with a commitment to making sure that they give back to community and that they realize that they have the power to transform things that they don't like. I think one of the beautiful things about working with young people is that they'll tell you right off the bat, so to what is not equitable, what's not right. And we give them and equip them with the tools that they need to be able to push for change that they would like to see. And the power that I've seen in them and the work that they've been able to do, both artistically in themselves in terms of working on their education, but also in the transformation of community is something that I would love to see amplified throughout the US and beyond
