Every year, nonprofit organization Chicxs Rockerxs (pronounced cheek-ex roh-kerr-ex) hosts a week-long summer camp in Southeast Los Angeles for girls and gender nonconforming youth to unleash their inner rock stars.
At the camp, which took place from June 30 to July 4 this year, students learn new instruments, attend creative workshops, and perform original songs in bands with their fellow campers. Students ages 8 to 17 qualify for enrollment.
Yet two weeks before camp this summer, amid the citywide uptick in raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, organizers heard some students were staying home in fear.
“As we were planning and getting ready for camp in person, that’s sort of when the raids started happening in Southeast L.A., and we saw how intensified they were in the area and how violent [they were] and just really damaging to the community,” said organizer Audrey Silvestre.
To safeguard campers and their families from ICE raids in the region, Chicxs Rockerxs canceled the in-person camp — but not entirely.
Organizers quickly moved the program online. Staffers offered to drop off musical instruments, gift cards for food, and camp supplies to families who were not comfortable going out during the raids. They also made a formal announcement on Instagram, informing supporters about the crucial format change.
“We want to reaffirm that CRSELA stands in solidarity with our Black and Brown immigrant communities. As an organization, we formed in response to the firsthand challenges faced by girls and LGBTQ+ youth in Southeast LA, a predominantly Latinx/e immigrant region,” the post read in part.
“Thank you for thinking of the babies!!!” one person commented on the camp’s post.
“Your SELA community supports you!” another person wrote.
“It didn’t feel safe to be asking our communities to take the risk to leave their homes if they didn’t feel safe to do so,” Silvestre said.
Chicxs Rockerxs previously went virtual during the COVID-19 pandemic and facilitated their music camp by having students connect through Zoom to create bands, learn songwriting skills, and come up with an end product they could record together in the video sessions. According to Star, an organizer who asked that their full name not be disclosed for privacy reasons, the virtual model they developed for the pandemic was restructured for this year’s camp, and many changes were made to enhance the experience.
“We wanted them just to have an opportunity to have a safe space to create and to express themselves, and it didn’t necessarily have to result in a song at the end of the week,” Star said. “It was just opportunities to be creative.”
Students still learned new instruments this year, as staffers were able to drop off keyboards, guitars, bass guitars, drum pads and karaoke microphones to campers for daily lessons. Besides music courses, students also participated in smaller breakout rooms called “jam rooms,” which included different themes and creative activities. For example, some jam rooms consisted of karaoke, while others focused on making TikToks and interviewing one another.
“The idea behind these rooms was to keep it fun, because it’s Zoom and it’s not the most exciting for many kiddos who went to school on Zoom,” said Silvestre. “It’s not the most enjoyable way to experience camp, but it’s for them to have fun, bond with their bandmates and just be in community with each other.”
While campers all participated online from home, some staffers operated in person at their campus to stream lunchtime performances and daily assemblies. The organizers created a “DIY television studio,” which they described as similar to public access cable, allowing them to toggle between different cameras from their set to make sessions dynamic and improve the virtual experience for students.
Students like 17-year-old Naima Ramirez, who attended camp for the past four years, said she appreciated what Chicxs Rockerxs did for her and fellow campers.
“I think it was very thoughtful and kind of them to forget all of the scheduling that they had originally done for in-person camp and scramble into doing everything on Zoom,” Ramirez said.
Ramirez said she was initially disappointed to hear that camp was moving online but believed Chicxs Rockerxs did the right thing because of the current environment in Southeast L.A.
“I was bummed because it’s my last year and I was really looking forward to being in person,” Ramirez said. “But I also understood why we had to go online.”
For organizers at Chicxs Rockerxs, the safety and well-being of campers and their families is their top concern. Even though camp took a different approach this year, they said they’re always willing to help campers beyond the creative services they provide.
“One of the things CRSELA prides itself in is that this is meant to be a safe space,” Star said. “I’m really proud that we [were] able to create a safe space in a different way for [camp this year]. It’s a safety precaution for our community, and I think that’s more important at this time.”
