The question of what truly defines LA lingers. While fame and fortune often come to mind, this superficial notion doesn’t quite define the LA locals come to know. Once the exciting branded events subside, there’s a deeper warmth—one rooted in community that embraces all. What does this sense of community and diversity really mean? Two words said so often, one might forget to pause and let their meanings digest. I embarked on a sentimental journey with five poets: Luis Rodríguez, Monique Mitchell, Jason Chu, Jasmine Minchez, and Diane Luby Lane, founder of Get Lit - Words Ignite, before their debut show, If I Awaken in Los Angeles. Get Lit - Words Ignite is a nearly 20-year-old literary and spoken word poetry nonprofit that nurture the lives of creative youth across Los Angeles. 

On a stroll through neighborhoods they are proud to call home, each poet reflects on their communities and how they have shaped their connection with themselves, and even their ancestors.  

Luis Rodríguez

In a warm coffee shop, I sat across from Luis Rodríguez, a beacon of the Latino and Chicano community and renowned poet, revisiting his childhood neighborhood in Boyle Heights. Once broken by drugs and stuck in systemic survival, his identity as a Latino and the power of his community were the last things on his mind. It wasn’t until a stranger off the street tricked him into thinking the Chicano Moratorium was a “big party” that his passion for mobilization and later poetry was realized. “There were speakers and music and danzantes [dancers],” Rodríguez said, and he began to feel a new pride in his identity that was once hidden in shame. Estranged from his family and described as “just a street kid,” he often visited the library downtown to study his craft, honing his literary skills. He made it a point to acknowledge his “angel,” who’d become an unspoken mentor to him. “There was a librarian there named Helene…she used to see this scruffy-looking Chicano kid reading books. This Brown Beret mentor was the only one to give me the time of day, [because] nobody else wanted nothing to do with me.” Each different from him yet so willing to offer new perspectives and connections, his mentors and the city nurtured him. Today, Rodríguez nurtures youth and community in the San Fernando Valley at Tia Chuchas Centro, a nonprofit bookstore and cultural arts center co-founded by his activist wife, Trini Rodríguez, and his brother-in-law Enrique Sanchez. 

Monique Mitchell

Monique Mitchell, a youth mentor at Get Lit who became a published poet at the ripe age of 5, visited the historic South Central that raised her. She’d lost her mother just a year before her first publication, and poetry and community became her outlet to release, mythologize her mother's presence, and grieve. Empathizing with her teacher Mrs. Boyle, Mitchell wrote her a poem about grieving the loss of one’s mother. Soon, others felt connected and seen in Mitchell's vulnerable gesture once it was published and shared in the local paper. After Mitchell's ability was established from a young age, she later joined Get Lit in pursuit of her dreams. There, Mitchell found her “chosen mother,” Diane Luby Lane, who nurtured Mitchell through bereaved young adulthood and empowered her voice. Mitchell grew up like the women who guided her spirit, and now assists youth poets in amplifying their voices and self-identity. 

Jason Chu

Jason Chu, social media historian and rapper, visited the festive Chinatown filled with migrant-owned shops and restaurants that he holds dear. Originally from New York, where rap culture surrounded him during his youth, Chu sought a deeper connection to his Asian American lineage. Now proud to call the city his home of 13 years, he says, “LA is a place that made me into the man I am. Literally and figuratively I woke up in LA.” Mentors who’d taken him under their wing, activists, artists, and professors, taught him unspoken histories of their culture and their ancestors' means of survival. Today, Chu speaks of the people's awakening and the urgency felt after fires as the community struggles. “'Our liberation is bound up in one another,' and I think that LA exemplifies that,” he said, quoting Aboriginal women activists. “Obviously, our cultures come from different heritages and motherlands, but when it comes to being Angelinos, you can't talk about Koreatown without talking about [Latinos].”

Jasmine Minchez

Jasmine Minchez, a poet and mentor at Get Lit, who was once a cocooned Latina from South Central, now exhibits a tender confidence, sharing her equine lifestyle in the San Fernando Valley. Minchez reflected on her time of refuge as a young girl, afraid to take up space. Her English teacher encouraged her to step out of her comfort zone by attending Get Lit’s annual “Classic Slam,” one of the largest spoken word youth events in the country. It was then that she started to shed light on her power and identity as a Latina.

One of her favorite personal poems to date, “Diary of a Hot Cheeto Girl,” is about a Latina archetype of her childhood, one who exuded a seemingly effortless confidence she yearned to embody—an energy akin to the one she’d channel on stage in a community she became proud to call her home. Minchez wanted to empower youth like herself. Thriving in her eloquence, she became a poetry mentor, singling out the “shy girls” and “nonchalant boys,” hoping to liberate their authentic inner selves, even if for a moment. Now, excited to return, after stepping back from the community for a year to focus on higher education, she says the absence of the poetry community made her feel she was missing a part of herself and her sense of home.

Diane Luby Lane

Diane Luby Lane, founder of the transformational nonprofit Get Lit and a poetry enthusiast, visited the office she built nearly 20 years ago in Leimert Park. Growing up in a small town in New Jersey, she discovered her passion for poetry after her father's passing in high school, turning it into her means of therapy and healing. She’d soon set her sights on something greater as an artist. Initially energized by the ever-evolving New York, she found out that city wasn’t quite what she’d hoped for. In Los Angeles, she sought out deeper connections and a more authentic community. Unaware of the future synchronicity, she stumbled upon her first job working at The Ford. As she settled into the city, some connections were so willing to support her, like Jimmy Santiago Baca. He learned to read and write in a maximum-security prison and facilitated Lane in her ambitions to broaden spoken word education in classrooms across the district. Despite being upended by schools in Los Angeles time and time again, she stood consistent in the change that she felt was needed.

Poetry and a safe space were the two things she had to offer as her tools of survival and self-empowerment for youth. Now, her impact has shifted the lives of youth across the city and district of 154 languages. Even talents like singer-songwriter H.E.R. have thanked Lane for her liberality. “It is my humble offering to take or not to take,” Lane says. She simply wishes to reflect the thriving cultures of our intimate city, intrinsic to our daily lives. 

Whether it’s via the vibrant streets of Boyle Heights, South Central, and the Valley or the cultural richness of Chinatown and Leimert Park, these five poets invite you to see the city through their eyes in their debut show, If I Awaken in Los Angeles. What defines the city isn’t the pursuit of fame, but the roots of its communities—the untold stories, shared struggles, and resilience that bind them together. Through poetry, they trace a line back to their roots, revealing the layers of history and identity that shape who they are within the communities they proudly represent. Los Angeles is not just a city of opportunities; it’s a city of collective struggle, rebirth, and connection. The opening words of If I Awaken in Los Angeles captures the essence of the city and the ongoing story of its people: “Before borders there was belonging.” Now, a new chapter begins through these poets’ words. 

Photo credits: Evelina Gabrielle Perez 

About the Author: Evelina Gabrielle Perez (She/Her) of Las Fotos Project's Creative Career Center is a queer Mexican-American photographer from Whittier, California. Blending cultural depth with artistic innovation, her practice is driven by a passion for connection and analog processes. Her work is rooted in themes of identity, community, and self-expression. She thrives at the intersection of art, fashion, photography, and music. For her, every project offers the chance to push creative boundaries and foster inspiring connections with others.

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