Our Current Work
The ArteVism Fellowship Program seeks to build community capacity, empowering and fostering civic engagement through creative artistic expression and collective leadership among California’s Central Valley Youth of Color. This program expands opportunities to underserved youth to express their creative and artistic visions by producing provocative programming that engages the community and paves the way for a more democratic and equitable region.
PVI’S Methodologies for Achieving Impact
The Pan Valley Institute defines popular education as a democratic process for bringing about social change. It’s not a strategy as much as a philosophy and a way of working that focuses on everyday people. Yet equality in popular education is found not in the philosophy, but in the practice. Ultimately, popular education is a process of transforming disenfranchised people into social actors who continuously support, encourage, and learn from each other as they plan and implement strategies for achieving social and economic justice and then evaluate their effectiveness.
We will continue to develop popular education and cultural organizing strategies that inspire communities to work together, build solidarity ties and networks, organize themselves, and become more actively involved in public matters and promoting systemic changes. We will continue practicing direct action and advocacy to accompany and join immigrants and refugees in the protection and enactment of their human, civil, and cultural rights.
Participatory Action Research
Participatory Action Research (PAR) is a process of generating collective knowledge that is then applied to change a specific social condition that impacts the most marginalized members of society. By validating the knowledge of the most oppressed groups, this methodology enables participants to enhance their understanding and use it to transform their conditions of oppression.
PAR research methods are based on the principles of popular education, subscribing to the idea that everyone involved brings expertise to the equation and provides equal value to the process. The outcome is that the knowledge that is generated will lead to action that will eventually change the problem that was being addressed, improving the lives of participants.
Because PAR is a collective process of studying and analyzing one or more pressing issues, participation is crucial. Those involved must accurately and fairly represent their communities and voice their concerns. Participants must be committed to taking action toward solving the specific issues addressed.
Cultural Work/Cultural Organizing
At PVI, cultural organizing aims to revitalize and sustain immigrants’ artistic expression and cultural practices in order to support them in their efforts to become more socially and politically included, and to help build stronger, more active communities. Our guiding principle when engaging in cultural organizing is that the participants must always choose how to express their culture and how they want to participate in civic life. Following this general premise, our approach to cultural work/cultural organizing makes the following assertions:
Active Citizenship and Developing Social Actors
Immigrant civic participation is often discussed in terms of naturalization and legal citizenship, and voter registration and voter turnout. While both of these areas of immigrant civic engagement are important to PVI, we also recognize a broader array of civic engagement values and principles as central to our work. “Active citizenship” is based on the principles of full engagement embraced by PVI and activated through our cultural organizing work.
PVI’s approach to active citizenship includes paying close attention to the value of:
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Developing and nurturing individual leadership, voice, skills, knowledge, and strengths of immigrants engaged in public problem solving despite their immigration status.
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Building strong social and professional networks and institutional relationships that enable people to work together across common boundaries, and effectively address the issues they care about in a way that builds deep and sustainable work for the long haul.
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Strengthening immigrant institutions, including the resources, governing structures, and organizational capacities that enable long-term support systems and broad-based problem solving in the public arena.
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Mapping and supporting community capital, or the mentors, elders, informal associations, and helping systems that enable individual immigrant leaders and immigrant groups to engage beyond their own local communities and beyond their communities of origin.
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Inspiring immigrants to engage in civic life as full contributing members of society and democratic life as thinkers and actors around local problem-solving, public debate, and policymaking.
The 2023-2024 ArteVism Fellows
Joshua Slack
Joshua Slack makes a statement as an actor, writer, and director. He studied at Fresno State, majoring in both Theater Arts – Acting emphasis and Africana Studies, and at Stella Adler: Art of Acting Studio in Los Angeles. He is also the music minister at his church, Philadelphia Outreach Ministries. While attending Fresno State, Joshua performed in several theatrical productions, served as the President for the Black Students United, the ONYX Black Male Collective, and acted as a founding member of the Afrikan Black Coalition at Fresno State. He worked with the NAACP to organize the Fresno Black Lives Matter protest in May 2020. Joshua is a professional photographer with a business, “J. Slack Images.” He uses his photography as a vessel to bring life to his community by depicting images of those from marginalized backgrounds at the forefront. Joshua often serves his community as an activist and speaker when he is not performing. He was also a Fellow during the 2021-2022 Pan Valley Institute ArteVism Fellowship cohort, where he wrote and performed in his solo performance, “CODESWITCH.”
Joshua’s life goal is to own a production company emphasizing TV, film, photography, theatre, and other art forms that express the uniqueness of niche storytelling within the Black community. He plans to offer it as a platform to tell the stories that mainstream media won’t tell and uplift his community’s unheard voices.
Natalie Moreno-Aguilar
Natalie Moreno-Aguilar, is a twenty-year-old non-binary xicane born and raised in Merced, California. They have been learning and working alongside young folks since the beginning of high school. Natalie has focused on advancing proactive solutions to their community’s pressing issues, such as affordable housing, access to mental health resources, and building youth wellness centers. They plan to continue planting these seeds within the community through campaigns and strategies for new elections in the city while targeting the root causes of issues in the Central Valley through new ideas from young minds and all movement work passed on before us.
Shane Lara Jr
Shane Lara Jr. Is a spoken word artist, author, and activist within the Native American community. A member of the Natchitoches Tribe of Louisiana, Shane uses his talent in poetry and other mediums in writing to raise awareness on issues that affect indigenous people, like the missing murdered indigenous women movement and tribal sovereignty. Shane is also a poetry slam champion, winning the title in Visalia and a Di De Los Poeticas Champion in 2023 while working alongside Poet Laureates like Bryan Medina, Joseph Rios, and Lee Herrick. Continuing to use his talents to spread awareness, Shane hopes to spread his good medicine to the Valley.
Tsim Nuj Vang
Tsim Nuj Vang (they/them) is a HMoob, Queer child of refugees and a descendant of shamans and healers. They are a dance artist-researcher and a first-time intern of the ArteVism Fellowship. Located on Yokuts Land in the Central Valley, the Heart of Cali, their hometown is Merced. They are recent alumni of UC San Diego (‘23) on Kumeyaay Land and received their Bachelor of Arts in Ethnic Studies and minored in Dance. Their passion for dancing, organizing, healing, and storytelling helps them dream, imagine, and build a better, more just, liberated present and future. Tsim Nuj is inspired by marginalized communities’ collective visions and actions, transformative and healing justice political frameworks and values, and movements energizing people and youth power. They are committed to ensuring that their loved ones and communities can meet their basic needs, thrive, and live in dignity.
What we do
PVI has grown into an organization that not only advocates for underserved immigrant and refugee populations, but also accompanies them and provides spaces where they can identify their strengths, share their stories, and reach a common understanding of the sociopolitical circumstances that have denied them social justice. As a result, they can form ties of solidarity that allow them to take active steps towards changing their conditions of oppression.
Since its inception, PVI’s program work has been shaped by constant consultation with grassroots immigrant, refugee leaders, and community volunteers to ensure our work is relevant, responds to these communities’ social concerns, and strengthens immigrants and refugees’ capacity as effective social actors.
Our first convening took place in December 1998–a two-day residential gathering of Mexican, Central American, and Mexican Indigenous immigrants, the purpose of which was to determine how PVI could best serve new immigrants, build community, leadership, and cohesiveness among the diverse ethnic groups calling the Valley home. From that initial gathering grew a group of 10 Latino, Mexican Indigenous, and Southeast Asian women who participated in a popular education process from 1999 to 2003. They demonstrated what it takes to build interethnic relationships, assume leadership roles, and be a voice for immigrant women, all while redefining their own traditional roles. Many of these women have gone on to become influential public officials, income-generating leaders, and role models within their local communities.
PVI developed a cultural organizing model seeded in the cultural and story-sharing spaces that were part of our residential gatherings and support for the Civic Action Network (CAN). CAN was a collaborative effort of the James Irvine Foundation and the Central Valley Partnership for Citizenship (CVPC), of which PVI was a member, to provide assistance and small grants to emerging immigrant organizations throughout the California’s Central Valley.
The highlight of PVI’s cultural organizing work was showcased through Tamejavi Festivals, our most visible public events. Held bi-annually from 2002 to 2009, Tamejavi Festivals were celebrations of immigrants’ native cultures and traditions. The Tamejavi Festivals played a pivotal role in building a sense of place, solidarity, pride, and civic responsibility for participants. In 2011, we launched the Tamejavi Cultural Organizing Fellowship Program (TCOFP). The program trained and supported four cohorts of “cultural organizers” who are deeply committed to the well-being and cultural resilience of their communities. Twenty-three fellows and four apprentice fellows, representing a multigenerational group of Mexican Indigenous, South, and Southeast Asian, Palestinian, Pakistani, and Iranian men and women, have graduated from the program.
Aside from the projects guided by the principles of popular education, participatory action research, and cultural organizing, we have played an active role in advocating for immigration policy reform. This has included organizing marches, supporting families when a family member was detained by Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE), building partnerships with like-minded organizations, and responding to leaders of communities targeted by ICE and other law enforcement agencies like local police or the Highway Patrol.
Who we work with
PVI works with and on behalf of the Central Valley’s long-established and newly arrived immigrant and refugee populations, most specifically in Merced, Madera, Fresno, and Tulare counties. Many of them confront a number of inequalities such as poverty, racial and cultural discrimination, and alienation from political power.
For decades, the Central Valley agricultural industry has attracted workers from as far away as Armenia, India, China, Mexico, and other parts of Latin America. The Valley is also home to many immigrants from Southeast Asia and Central America seeking refuge from wars, political conflicts, and economic insecurity. More recently, we are witnessing groups of refugees and immigrants coming from the Middle East: Iraq, Palestine, Syria, and Iran.
Looking to the future
PVI’s work in the next 10 years will focus on building Central Valley communities that value ethnic diversity, and in which racial, economic, and social inequalities are not tolerated. Our goals call for work that will advance building a more inclusive socio-political landscape in the Central Valley, one in which the voices of immigrants and refugees resonate. We aspire to build communities where all belong. Our hope is that we see social exclusion and racism replaced by a culture that respects and values cultural and ethnic diversity, as well as immigrants’ contributions. With our community partners and allies, we commit to work for a more just and diversified economy that is not solely driven by agri-business, but one that provides opportunities for economic security for all.
At PVI, we are committed to spending the next 10 years creating a Central Valley
- in which immigrants, refugees, and other disenfranchised communities have a seat and a voice at the table where political decisions regarding their lives are made;
- where exclusion and racism are replaced by a culture that respects and values cultural and ethnic diversity, and immigrants’ and refugees’ contributions;
- that is not solely driven by agri-business, and that provides opportunities for economic security for all.
As an organization, our goals are to
- create a safe and welcoming cross-cultural popular education and participatory research learning center;
- affirm and strengthen solidarity networks, partnerships, and friendships;
- ensure PVI’s financial stability
