❋Homecoming

We’ve been asking for years how we tie our past generations’ stories together, how we bring our abuelos, our parents, our tíos and tías, our block, our hometowns, our barrios to the forefront instead of letting those stories fade. This is your chance to do just that. Whether you’ve got a whole archive of memories or just one story sitting heavy in your chest, this collective is built to walk you alongside your ancestors and your community in unity. Together we’ll pull the threads between then and now, weaving our lived experiences with the voices that came before us, loud, proud, and unapologetically ours.

Fellowship Description

For generations, we’ve been asking how to carry our past forward — how to honor the voices of those who came before us and bring their stories into the light. The Barrio Arts Fellowship is created for that exact purpose.

This fellowship is for Chicano/a/e storytellers who want to bridge timelines: to connect family histories, neighborhood memories, cultural identity, and lived experience into narrative form. Whether you’re sitting on a whole collection of stories or just one powerful memory that refuses to leave you alone, this fellowship gives you the space, support, and community to develop it.

Throughout the fellowship, participants will explore ancestral storytelling, oral tradition, cultural memory, and modern expression — all while being in community with other writers, artists, and cultural carriers. Together we will sit beside our ancestors, our elders, our barrios, and each other, weaving the past and present into work that is real, honest, and unapologetically ours.

This is a space to reclaim voice, preserve legacy, and bring our stories to the forefront — not just for ourselves, but for future generations who will look for us the way we looked for those before us.

Applicants will be asked to respond to the following (short-answer + longer reflection):