DENVER — Mexican American teenagers facing troubles and traumas are finding a new path forward, through ancient Indigenous teachings at the Denver Healing Generations program.
“You carry the baggage, the cargas, but you also have the blessings and the gifts,” said John Perez, who helps lead the group. “Well-being and self-care is rooted in all of the work that we do.”
Many of the youth joining the group have been disengaged at school or had run-ins with the criminal justice system.
Denver Healing Generations helps these young people cope with their traumas and create balance and purpose in their lives. They do this through ceremonial practices and Indigenous teachings tracing back to the Mexica, the original inhabitants of what is now Mexico.
“Our ancestors have been doing this for thousands of years in terms of healing our community,” said Perez. But these coping mechanisms haven’t always been taught in Colorado.
Perez grew up on the northside of Denver in the Quigg-Newton projects, and wishes he had an opportunity like this as a kid.
“My dad spent most of his life in jail,” Perez said. When his father returned home, “he fell into drug use and alcoholism.”
Perez said he often felt alone and sought companionship from friends and family with gang ties or drug addictions.
“I took it out on my community. I took it out on women in my community. I took it out on myself,” he said.
But as he got older and became a father himself, his life trajectory changed. He started working with kids who were locked up in residential treatment programs, and later with young people in diversion programs through the Colorado Department of Safety.
“I learned that a lot of these spaces for our youth aren't so healthy,” he said.
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He reflected on how many of the traumas in his own life stemmed from his family’s experiences, and going further back in time, to the discrimination and genocide faced by his ancestors.
“I connected all of these dots,” he said. “I took a pretty big dive into my own culture, into my own cultura, and I found ceremony.”
Now, in the Centro del Barrio community gathering space, Perez brings together young people around an altar of burning copal.
The young participants take turns expressing themselves, and learning skills for coping with mental health struggles and appreciating the positive forces in their lives. The lessons come from a California-based organization, the National Compadres Network.
Healing Generations offers the Joven Noble group for young men, Girasol for young women and the Huitzilin Warriors for those getting engaged in advocacy.
“A lot of these youth are coming with shame and guilt from their stories being impacted by the juvenile justice system,” said Alessandra Chavira, the Huitzilin Warriors coordinator, who sees herself as their strict older sister.
Chavira said huitzilin is the Indigenous Nahuatl word for hummingbird. She said growing up her grandmother would tell her hummingbirds are a link to ancestors past and messengers of good.
She recalls folklore of a tiny hummingbird trying to put out a forest fire by gathering up as much water as he can carry. “The rest of the animals laugh at the hummingbird and say, ‘what do you think you're doing?’ And the hummingbird tells them, ‘I'm doing what I can.’”
Making the hummingbird a fitting symbol for these young people seeking to improve their community.
“The hope begins with them seeing themselves in a different light, you know, and then that hope transforms into advocacy work,” Chavira said.
The Huitzilin Warriors recently visited the Denver City Council to call for more investment in mental health care, and paths for young people to avoid getting caught up in the juvenile justice system.
“The school prison pipeline, I want to see that kind of broken down,” said Eleuia Richardson, one of the teenagers participating in the program.
When Richardson joined the group, she was going through “mental health problems, school issues.”
“I was acting up, being bad,” and having suicidal ideations, she said. But she said Huitzilin Warriors is helping.
“It does give me space to share my voice,” she said.
Amariss Escobar, who joined the Huitzilin Warriors two years ago, agrees.
“I was really grateful to have this as my diversion” after getting in trouble for a petty crime, she said.
Escobar now sees shoplifting as a coping mechanism she used because she couldn’t access mental health care. In the Huitzilin Warriors’ Barrio Revista magazine, she reflected on the bouts of depression and self-harm she experienced, which she attributes to a troubled relationship with her father.
Now, she’s finding her voice through poetry.
“That's where I really thrive,” she said.
Perez, the program manager for Healing Generations, said helping young people find their voice and stick to it is a key teaching.
“Palabra is this understanding that you're responsible not only for yourself, but you're responsible for your community, you’re responsible for your family,” Perez said. “Walking your palabra in a healthy way means that you're going to live a life of an honorable person.”
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Once youth participants complete one of Healing Generations’ programs, Perez said a rite of passage celebrates their progress.
“Oftentimes, our young people in the community, their rights of passage are really negative. A lot of times it's getting in a fight for the first time or having sex for the first time or doing drugs for the first time,” Perez said.
But at Healing Generations, “we have a bridge that we have young people cross,” and they are met on the other side by community members. A symbolic passage into adulthood.
“We're gonna walk in a way that is with integrity and with love and with intention for our community,” Perez said.
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