Looking Back at “Movements + Moments: Latinx Youth Organizing”
On February 16, 2023, the DC History Center, with its Latino/a/x Advisory Group, presented Movements + Moments: Latinx Youth Organizing, proudly hosted at the Latin American Youth Center.
Movements + Moments is a conversation series centering Latinx experiences, influences, and roles in DC history. This series asks the questions: How do we weave Latinx histories into DC’s historical narratives? Whose stories are missing? With the second installment in the series, Arturo Griffiths and Pepe Gonzalez look back at the organizing days of their youth, in conversation with Luz Chavez Gonzales.
Arturo Griffiths immigrated to DC from Panama in 1964. Upon his arrival, he recognized a need for community-building and especially youth services in DC. He helped found the Latin American Youth Center (opened in 1968) and organized the Latino Festival in the 1970s.
Pepe Gonzalez has called Mount Pleasant home since 1963, growing up during the turbulent 60s and 70s. In the early 1970s, as a teenager, he formed one of the first integrated, Latino and African American bands in the DC area.
Watch these two titans of Latinx histories in DC immortalize their stories and the stories of our community in the discussion below:
