Our Programs
Inter+Regeneration
This program connects youth in their communities with their elders. Helping trace stories of home, migration, history, growth and connection.
Civil Liberties
The AjA Project’s Civil Liberties Project is an iterative program (2017-Present) encouraging youth and young adult participants to examine the history of Japanese-American incarceration during WWII and how it parallels their own personal histories as immigrants/refugees.
This program engages and educates participants and audience members about Executive Order 9066 and its lasting consequences, as well as its similarities to present-day civil rights struggles.
Back Alley Poetry Club
City Heights reflects a diverse community of first and second generation immigrants and refugees that have incredible stories to tell, but our stories are being forgotten and ignored. The Back Alley Poetry Club invites young adults of City Heights to respond to the last 20 years of history in this city. Through a series of writing workshops and public performances, fellows tell the stories of their communities as well as explore their own personal journeys. This summer, fellows also co-produced a final art installation, a semi-permanent weaving of poetry, image, and voice on a back-alley in the heart of City Heights. It serves as a reminder of the narratives that are historically pushed off the “main” street, to refuse the erasure of those who have shaped it— despite the ongoing process of gentrification.
Journey
AjA’s Flagship program
Counter Surveillance
Surveillance systems are embedded in our daily lives. Designed to be invicible This program points the camera back at those systems and ask the participant, “Who Watches Who?”.
Memoria Terra
As a resettlement neighborhood for refugee populations, City Heights is one of San Diego’s most diverse communities. According to the US Census, the neighborhood houses approximately 81,000 residents, 77% of whom are renters. Historically marginalized ethnic and racial groups account for 85% of City Heights residents, with 54% identifying as Hispanic or Latino. Roughly 41% of City Heights residents were born outside of the US. The 5 poets that were recruited for this project are local and connected to City Heights, clearly represented by their backgrounds: Cambodian-African American, Somali, and Sudanese.
