Our Right to Dream
by Luis Antonio Pichardo
Founder / Executive Director of DSTL Arts
Are we allowed to dream? Is having a dream really validated by society?The common responses to those questions are both yes and rarely, respectively. Especially if you’re anything like me — the child of an immigrant, child of working-class people, child of individuals with limited access to everything, from education and technology to capital and mental health resources.
I remember being five years old, a first-generation Mexican-American boy, sitting in my first grade classroom. Our assignment was simple: Draw yourself in your dream job. Having been introduced to drawing for personal enjoyment the year before, I knew how much fun I’d have completing this assignment. I submitted a crayon rendition of my dad’s red 1988 Ford Ranger pick-up truck next to the two of us mowing lawns. I can only imagine what my teacher thought of my drawing.
It was a simple dream, really. I wanted to be like my dad.
I also remember being twelve years old. My parents at the threshold of divorce, my dad not just grieving the loss of us, his family, but also grieving the murder of my uncle, his younger brother, and him coping by drowning himself in work. After years of drawing for fun and studying every “how-to” drawing book I could find in school and public libraries, I took to drawing comics and graffiti as a way of coping with my own anger, sadness, and confusion that existed at that time. It was a release — perhaps the start of a new dream. I remember thinking, “Hey, I could do this as a job one day. That would be cool.”
I shared that thought with my parents, and they both, independently, told me they didn’t sacrifice their health, safety, dignity, and so much more so that I could be an “artist.” They expected me to finish school and become a doctor or a lawyer. They wanted me to be wealthy. That was their dream.
We were poor. Not impoverished, like the children I saw during my monthly Tijuana-San Diego border crossings, but not wealthy enough to have my parents say college was an expectation, much less an option for me. My dad had two years of formal education in México, and my mom, who dropped out of school at the age of sixteen to work my grandparents’s farm in Vista, returned to school after she learned she was pregnant with me, primarily because she knew she didn’t want me to grow up one day and say, “You didn’t graduate, why should I?”
We were poor. But I still dared to dream.
The need to be an artist, and recognized as such, was immense for me. I couldn’t escape it. I was an artist. I am an artist.
After ten years of working in the nonprofit sector, and after becoming the first person in my family to graduate high school, college, and grad school, I needed to defy everyone who told me that being an artist was an unrealistic dream. I insisted it was possible to be a working artist, and not the stereotype of the “starving artist.” In 2012, I founded DSTL Arts with the support of other people who felt the same way.
Not everyone in society believes the arts are a valid career. Not everyone can see beyond the stereotype of the “starving artist.” Not everyone is aware that dreams produce our reality. But it is our right to dream, and dream we will, because that is what leads to the self-actualization we all strive to achieve.
While brainstorming the name of our organization, I knew that my role as a mentor to future emerging artists was not to be their “savior.” I would be there to develop their innate skills and provide guidance to them as they transcended whatever limitations society might’ve placed on them. Develop Skills and Transcend Limits through the Arts. DSTL Arts. That’s what I do.
Our mission is to “inspire, teach, and hire emerging artists from underserved communities.” As an arts mentorship organization, for nearly ten years now we have worked with talented artists from various communities. Most have come from similar communities to mine. All of them continue to nurture their dream of being working artists — just like me.
There are many ways in which DSTL Arts supports artists. One is through publication. While my organization has multiple programs that produce chapbooks, anthologies, and zines of art, poetry, and more, the newest publication in our catalog further acknowledges the dreams of our “aurtists.”
Introduced in 2019, Aurtistic Zine is a bi-annual publication that provides artists living with autism and their immediate family members a platform for sharing and elevating their “aurtistic” voices. This publication is not about the secondhand interpretation of the autistic experience, but the firsthand, artistic rendition of life as an artist on the spectrum.
To speak more to the impact of having a dream validated, Ms. Susan Chavez, mother and grandmother to two young men who have been featured in various issues of Aurtistic Zine and an Aurtistic Zine contributor herself, now shares a few words:
“To me, Aurtistic Zine symbolizes liberation, compassion, and the opportunity for self-reflection. As a mother to an autistic son, I have sometimes felt lost and overwhelmed in the world of autism theories. Participating in Aurtistic Zine has definitely given me a voice in the process of understanding ‘our community’s’ theoretical perspectives.
“Sharing my story, from a mother’s perspective, of the diagnosis phase through to our journey into autism, gave me an opportunity to reflect and grow from my past experiences with autism. I appreciate that, over time, our lives have grown into a higher degree of love and compassion for each other. All my family members have thrived in the support of the Aurtistic Zine editors; we have all grown in pride and support for each other. We all grow and flourish in the structure of [DSTL Arts] programs. We have become very compassionate and supportive of each other’s growth toward self-actualization.
“I think it’s imperative to reassign a new status quo to the experience of inclusiveness. I believe there is a holiness to understanding ourselves and others. So, when the opportunity by way of Aurtistic Zine appeared, we were then, and now, given the opportunity to react to life.”
Aurtistic Zine, along with the rest of our zines and programs, exists for one purpose: to validate dreams. Not everyone in society believes the arts are a valid career. Not everyone can see beyond the stereotype of the “starving artist.” Not everyone is aware that dreams produce our reality. But it is our right to dream, and dream we will, because that is what leads to the self-actualization we all strive to achieve.
Established in 2012, DSTL Arts has been a grantee of the California Arts Council since 2015.
ABOUT LUIS ANTONIO PICHARDO
Luis Antonio Pichardo is a poet/artist, and founder/executive director of DSTL Arts, a nonprofit arts mentorship organization that inspires, teaches, and hires emerging artists from underserved communities. As the eldest son of a Mexican immigrant father and self-identified Chicana mother, Luis is informed heavily by his upbringing traveling between Southern California and México; speaking, reading and writing in both English and Spanish, crafting art and poetry that explores the intersectionality of being Latinx, working-class, and from various communities where urban, suburban, and rural experiences commingle to form his Pan-American identity.
Learn more at www.dstlarts.org.
DREAM is California’s newest arts and culture magazine, published by the California Arts Council, the state’s arts agency.
The annual publication features voices and stories from across the state, sharing a glimpse into the depth of impact of creativity and cultural expression in a region as large and diverse as California. The premier issue explores what it means to dream, introducing artists and culture bearers from communities throughout the state.
Visit www.arts.ca.gov/dream for more information.
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