CARECEN SF Uses Arts and Advocacy to Empower Bay Area Immigrant Youth

This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. Click here to subscribe.

On Thursdays after school, a group of teenagers arrives at the Mid-Market headquarters of the Central American Resource Center of Northern California, or CARECEN SF, a social services organization for the Bay Area’s Central American communities.

They participate in a drum circle with instructor Victorino Cartagena, who leads them in learning a song inspired by Afro-Brazilian rhythms. Some are experienced drummers who have studied music for years, while others are picking it up for the first time.

One student described playing the drums as therapy. Others said it was an escape from daily life and a chance to connect with other musicians.

The students typically share a meal, catch up on homework and socialize before they start playing. One student said he discovered CARECEN SF through the drum circle and now views it as a support system.

Lariza Dugan-Cuadra, CARECEN SF’s executive director, told me that supporting young people is at the heart of the organization. The mission is more important with an anti-immigrant Trump administration.

“We’re really, one, recognizing that there’s fear and there’s pain,” she said. “Second, I’m really trying to create spaces and activities and outlets for young people to harness their power and transform them to action. And so we do that through a lot of culture, and the arts are critical to resilience.”

Immigrants come to CARECEN SF seeking legal help to gain residency or citizenship. They come for the organization’s mental health, physical health and wellness programs. Many times, the organization’s clients are struggling with necessities.

CARECEN SF takes an intergenerational approach, supporting everyone from recent arrivals to second- and third-generation Americans seeking guidance, community and cultural connection, Dugan-Cuadra said. The organization was founded in 1986 to assist waves of Central American migrants fleeing civil wars and dictatorships with their asylum cases.

“The bottom line is that people who migrate from any corner of the globe have continuously faced barriers to access our legal system, our immigration legal system,” Dugan-Cuadra said. “So that has remained the same across different administrations, whether it was Democrats or Republicans.”

“What feels very different now is this very overt xenophobic, criminalizing, dehumanizing narrative and speech that just strips people who migrate from their humanity, and it feels really like a psychological warfare,” she continued. “The way politicians talk about immigrants is void of any context other than strict hate. That’s been incredibly damaging to our community.”

Dugan-Cuadra said the organization provides youth mental health counseling, summer field trips around the Bay Area to learn about the region, a travel program to connect young with their ancestral homelands and a mentorship program for youth who have had experiences with the criminal justice system.

I met with Dugan-Cuadra at CARECEN SF’s Market Street building, which is undergoing a major renovation to transform the 1908 office space into a modern, 20,000-square-foot community center spanning five floors and a basement. The center, near the Civic Center Station, will include meeting rooms, staff offices, event spaces and lounge areas.

Dugan-Cuadra said supporting young people is crucial to creating a stronger community. She was born in Connecticut to an Irish father and a Nicaraguan mother who decided to raise her and her sister in Nicaragua. Her mother sent her back to San Francisco at 16, when the civil war made it too dangerous for her to stay in the country.

She recalled not speaking English when she arrived in San Francisco, where she met other refugees from Latin America who had fled their countries and ended up in the Mission district.

“That was just like a home, in the sense of people who were very social justice-minded and who had sacrificed a lot in their personal lifetimes for these visions of justice,” she said.

Before coming to the United States, she thought of it as a place of abundance “where everybody’s happy.”

“And then I came to San Francisco and learned that there was poverty and that there was racism, and that there was social injustice and police brutality,” Dugan-Cuadra said. “And I was like, ‘OK, well, there’s work to be done here.’”

Dugan-Cuadra came to CARECEN SF in 2012 after working for the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development managing programs. She also previously worked for KQED on media literacy programs and outreach to the Latino community. The throughline in her career has been a focus on strengthening community and giving people resources to better themselves.

At the drumming circle last week, students were concerned about Trump’s threats of mass deportations because, even if they were not directly affected, someone in their family or community might be. One student, who said he doesn’t follow political news, shared that he has seen reports on social media about federal agents arresting immigrants in the Bay Area.

“Even though I’m here legally, my parents just got their citizenship,” said one 16-year-old girl whose parents are originally from El Salvador. “It’s still important to stand up for our community and for others, even if it’s not affecting us because one day something could be affecting us, and then there’s no one else standing up for us.

“We have to stand up for each other.”

CARECEN SF has focused on educating adults and young people on their legal rights to help subdue the fear, anger and confusion many of them are feeling.

“We’re trying to build community and bridges and create a space where all young people feel included. They feel seen, they feel welcome,” Dugan-Cuadra said. “We want to offer a place where they can safely explore the challenges that they face, connect to services and then really affirm their vision of what a healthy, thriving adulthood looks like.”