Advocating for The Transformative Power of the Arts
An Interview with LA-based Arts Education Specialist, Youth Advocate and Community Leader Ricky Abilez
By Tyler FrancischineMeet Ricky Abilez, a Los Angeles-based arts education specialist who tirelessly devotes their life’s work to the intersection of art, social justice and education.
Photos by Huebner Headshots
An engaging and magnetic conversationalist who possesses the kind of warmth and presence that moves you to your core, Ricky currently serves as Arts for LA’s policy and advocacy director, where they work toward securing access to culturally affirming arts education for every student in greater Los Angeles, among other aims. A queer, Latiné artist and advocate, Ricky centers restorative and racial justice, social equity and culturally responsive youth empowerment in their work while utilizing their own training in theater arts and collaborative storytelling to promote empathy, critical thinking and democratic decision-making in students. Ricky firmly believes it’s these qualities that ultimately transform young people into active, engaged members of their communities.
Let’s start at the beginning of your journey to finding your passion and life’s mission. What initially inspired you to focus your energies on the intersection of social justice, art and education?
Ricky: “I grew up in a family that's very civically engaged. My grandma was a public official my whole life. She started in local politics, went to the state legislature and then Congress. I grew up volunteering a lot on her campaigns, and my mom has been involved in her union, so public service and fighting for civil rights have always been part of my life.
“I was attracted to the arts from a very young age, and I got involved in theater in high school. Getting cast in a show about gun violence in my junior year really opened my mind to the power of theater, and art in general, to hold up a mirror to society and bring these stories that we often neglect on a day-to-day basis into these creative spaces. It's easy to turn off the TV and forget that terrible things happen around the country and world every day, so I think there was something fascinating about using an art form where people usually go to escape reality to actually reflect reality in a way that was more accessible to digest.”
That’s quite possibly my favorite of art’s many magical powers. So how did you evolve your practice from being a performer to being an arts education specialist?
Ricky: “I went to California State University, Fullerton to get my BFA in theater arts with an emphasis in acting. While I was there, I produced a lot of what I call ‘theater for social change.’ I chose plays about sexual harassment, gun violence, racial injustice and the incarceration system.
“After I graduated from college, a lot of the work I was getting was what we call ‘theater for young audiences.’ It was a lot of musicals about mice finding their courage, or ‘The Velveteen Rabbit.’ What's fascinating about children's theater is that, you see it and might think, ‘Oh, it's a cute show for kids,’ but I very quickly realized these are powerful shows for kids. Kids are smart, and kids are very inquisitive, so you should be producing theater as if you're performing for adults. That opened my mind to connecting with youth in a different way, so I got very involved in arts education and started teaching at high schools.
“I went into those jobs viewing them as opportunities to not just teach the kids, but to learn from the kids and to understand what it is they felt they weren't getting from their education. I reflected on my own education and thought, ‘Why weren’t the arts ever really used to teach me?’ I think if they had been, it would've tapped into my creativity.
“I wanted to not just empower paying audiences at the theater but empower young people to really tap into what's happening in their communities and use their own voices to describe their lived experience. That's what it’s about for me -- how do we use storytelling and lived experience to comment on things happening around us that are usually overlooked?”
While teaching at schools like California School of the Arts - San Gabriel Valley and Brooklyn High School of the Arts, you developed your own curriculum centering restorative and racial justice, collaborative storytelling and cultural responsiveness. Can you tell me more about your teaching methods and the impact they’ve had on students?
Ricky: “I use my theater training and experience to tap into the individual stories of each person I teach. One of my favorite things about being an actor is jumping into a character who feels completely different from you, but by the end of the experience, you realize that the character’s actually very similar to you. The job is to find similarities so that you can play the character truthfully. I think that's an excellent lesson in life. Something I try to bring to the table for students is empathy: putting yourself in someone else's shoes and seeing the similarities between your unique story and theirs.
“Empathy helps you recognize shared humanity, and it increases solidarity, civic participation and the ability to maintain a healthy democracy. I say this because you learn to be a better communicator. You learn how to articulate your vision, your concerns, your pain and your goals. At the crux of it, theater has taught me about humanity, and I try to bring that humanity to the lessons I teach students.
“I built my curriculum around this idea of, how do we tie a student's personal story to where we’re at as a society and the issues that matter to students? I want to empower my students to recognize that their stories, their backgrounds and their points of view are unique and valuable. I ask them, ‘What are solutions that only you could bring to the table to solve problems that you see in society?’
“Students in my classes would choose a topic for the semester, and they were allowed to use any art form to explore this topic. I would say, ‘Find a word or a topic that matters to you.’ Some would choose issues like body image; others chose animal cruelty or simply empathy.
“One of the coolest experiences I've ever had as a teacher was with a student I was teaching in 2020. If I asked them to participate in a conversation, they really wouldn't. They were very nervous. I didn't know much about them other than they used they/he pronouns. As we were building the projects together, they brought me these lyrics they had written, and they said, ‘Can you review them so I know I'm on the right track?’
“While I was reading their lyrics, I just sobbed, because it was about their journey as a trans man, and how they were on that journey the entire semester they were in my class. I told them, ‘This is beautiful.’ They asked, ‘Well, how can I improve it?’ And I told them, ‘The whole point of this class is that it doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to come from your heart.’
“They didn't change anything, and then they performed it for the class. The entire class cried, and they cried. They got to have this conversation about who they are and how they hadn't felt seen this whole time. By sharing this song, they were able to feel seen and accepted by their peers. As a teacher, your guidance helps a student tap into parts of themselves that have always been there, and I think that is especially true with the arts.”
That is such powerful, life-altering work that you facilitated--kudos to you! What would you say is the most rewarding aspect of your work?
Ricky: “Watching something improve in another's life is my biggest reward. When I can see how a class and a safe space provided a student an opportunity to love themselves, it’ll just make me cry. I think something that I often forget is that, just doing the work in my body as a queer person and as a brown person is sometimes enough to inspire someone. Also, it's rewarding when you're able to help pass or impact legislation as an advocate organizer, like within the role I'm in now.”
Let’s talk about your current position as Arts for LA’s policy and advocacy director. Who do you advocate for in this role?
Ricky: “I advocate for arts workers in the arts and culture sector, a term that means a lot of different things. It can include nonprofit arts administrators, film and television crew members, producers, arts and culture journalists -- the list goes on.
“We do community listening and strategy sessions open to the public every year on topics like equitable arts education. We’ll have like 25 slots open, and anybody can sign up, so any 25 artists or arts workers from the community get to come have a conversation with me about the issues that they see in their field and possible solutions. All of that information is then synthesized, and we create an advocacy agenda, aimed at creating expanded opportunities, expanded funding and public support of the arts.
“We have an initiative that I'm working on with our staff called the Creative Jobs Collective Impact Initiative. Its goal is to achieve 10,000 creative job placements with a living wage by the year 2030 in Los Angeles County.
“We also advocate for students in Los Angeles County through our focus on arts education equity, which includes access to digital devices and the internet, as well as access to arts programming on campus. Nine out of 10 schools in California still don't have sustainable arts programs, even though teaching the arts in schools is part of our state constitution and curriculum standards.”
Thanks so much for sharing your story and insights. Before we go, do you have any recommendations for readers who want to get more involved in the kind of work you do?
Ricky: “I would encourage people to visit the Arts for LA website. I want to hear from people who don't typically have access to these kinds of conversations. I’d also encourage them to visit the websites of other small arts organizations. Here are two names: 4C Lab and Building Beats. They're both doing incredible work, and they're both run by women of color. Go support your local arts organizations, because they need it.”
