I left the East Coast and some of my best girlfriends behind with no real plan beyond immersing myself in the eternal summer of Los Angeles. Things didn’t exactly turn out as nice and breezy as expected, and I found myself lost, disconnected, and girl gang-less. Having volunteered at the rock camp for girls in New York before making the cross-country trek, I heard about a new rock camp starting up in LA. In an effort to reconnect with some girl power in my new town, I ventured out to the first meeting of the Rock ‘N’ Roll Camp for Girls Los Angeles. We started by going around the room introducing ourselves and saying why we signed up. I’ll never forget the short, tough, determined woman announcing that this downtown camp would be great and all, but what she really wanted was to bring something like this back to her stomping grounds of Southeast Los Angeles, where many people lack access to resources, where it could really make a difference.
“Why do folks have to go outside of Southeast LA to access music, to access self-confidence, to be in an environment that’s so positive? That’s what really inspired me to bring it home,” said the do-it-yourself entrepreneur, who goes simply by the name Marin, in a recent interview. Marin came up in South Gate and earned her punk rock chops drumming in an all women of color band called Bruise Violet. She credits her participation in the punk scene with teaching her how to make things happen with whatever resources are available.
After five years of sound engineering for the downtown Los Angeles rock camp, Marin kick-started her own camp, Chicas Rockeras SELA in 2015 with some like-minded Southeast Angelenos. Marin and her fellow camp organizers came of age in the punk rock house party scene of South Central and Southeast LA, and they apply this DIY approach to Chicas Rockeras in Huntington Park.
For both the campers and the volunteers, the idea behind rock camp has never been about professionalism in music. With a goal of encouraging self-esteem and self-empowerment in young girls through a medium of music, the first non-profit girl rock camp sprouted in Portland, Oregon, in 2001. At 55 and counting, these day camps have spread all over the world, connected by the Girls Rock Camp Alliance. In just one week, girls aged 8-17 learn an instrument, form a band, write an original song and perform it at a concert in front of their families, friends and rock camp community. Most adult musicians don’t work this quickly. Campers also learn life skills and community-building through workshops, skits, and guest speakers and performers.
“Girls are often made to feel small, to not be loud, to not take up space,” said Marin of the transformative nature of rock camp, “so imagine being ten, coming into camp, and being told ‘Yes you can’ over and over again, being celebrated for your mistakes, given a high-five, or even being encouraged to yell into a mic. Some girls, they have a breakdown, but they also have a breakthrough.”
The infectious energy of rock camp also has the power to change the lives of the adult volunteers, many of whom confess to learning a lot about themselves in the process. More often than not, they say they wish they’d had something encouraging and validating like rock camp growing up.
“If I had someone showing me or explaining to me what it is to be a person of color, what it is to be gender queer,” recalls Marin of her teen years, “I would’ve been more comfortable in my skin. Instead, it took me so long to come out, because I didn’t have these conversations with anybody.”
People want and need to see positive images of themselves mirrored back in order to imagine and activate their own potential. Chicas Rockeras works hard to actualize this in Southeast Los Angeles. Every aspect of this camp is tailored to both confronting and embracing the realities of girls growing up in Southeast LA. From the bilingual theme song and instruction to the separation of the campers into age-divided groups called the “Bidi Bidis” and the “Bom Boms,” this rock camp provides an accessible, affordable (100% sliding scale), safe space for girls to explore and express their identities.
“What does our neighborhood look like? Are we embarrassed of where we live? If so, why?” were questions Marin posed during a workshop she led in the first year of camp, to which some campers offered up, “I pick cans with my grandpa” or “I sell tamales with my mom.” “And so did I,” asserted Marin, “Having that conversation, by the end, they were crying, and they were just like, ‘I love where I’m from.’”
The beauty is that these young girls can take the energy and pride generated from camp home to their own lives and communities. As Chicas Rockeras SELA gears up for their second year, cofounder Marin declares her ultimate goal:
“We’re trying to take over the world one rock camp at a time!”
For more information on Chicas Rockeras, visit their website chicasrockerassela.org.
Text and audio by Allison Wolfe
Photos by Melissa Ramirez