CSU Monterey Bay's Digital Public Art class (VPA 306) worked for three years with the Center for Community Advocacy (CCA), a farmworker housing and health advocacy organization based in Salinas.  Last year, through the context of a birdhouse workshop, students interviewed farmworkers about their desires for their homes.  Read more and see the Pole Banner Gallery.

The corrido is a popular Mexican storytelling ballad, typically in the rhythm of a waltz, that glorifies heroes and great deeds.

Corridos usually include social commentary and were especially popular during the Mexican-American civil rights movement of the 1960s, when they focused on the acts of the movement’s courageous leaders. Read more and listen to El Corrido de CCA.

In keeping with the “making a home” theme, farm worker children and their families worked with muralist and public artist Roberto Salas on a birdhouse project at the farm worker camp at Pinto Lake, a location where annual bird migrations occur. 

Children were provided an opportunity to decorate and place birdhouse in the area surrounding the lake. Read more and see the Birdhouse Workshop gallery.