Cultivando Youth Speak

Our Words Are PowerfuL

Contributors: Amir Leonardo G Angel Morales Angela Orenday Josue Hernandez Natalie Logan Garcia Anthony Jouleyka Edgar Navarro Torres Fernando Andrade Eduardo Molina Reina Navarro

Cultivando Youth SPeak

Youth Poetry Compilation by Words To Power

Our Words Are Powerful: Cultivando Youth Speak

Words To Power

Our Words Are Powerful: Cultivando Youth Speak This book is a publication of

Copyright © 2025 by Words To Power All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author.

To the youth standing up for what is right, shining your light: You are truly the dreams of your ancestors.

We need you to be powerful!

We all must be.

Acknowledgments Thank you to the insightful Cultivando youth who wrote powerful poems as a part of this book. Special thank you to the staff at Cultivando for making this partnership possible. We look forward to working with you again! We greatly appreciate the financial support from Arts In Society, Bonfils-Stanton Foundation, Colorado Creative Industries, Denver Arts & Venues, Rose Community Foundation, and individual donors. With your investment, we can publish, celebrate, and distribute youth-written books as part of our programs in schools (workshops and student presentations), to encourage creative expression that reduces isolation, increases self-confidence, and increases the use of poetry for coping and resilience.

Foreword Welcome to “Our Words Are Powerful: Cultivando Youth Speak,” a youthwritten book of poetry as part of a collaboration between Cultivando and Words To Power. It features the voices of participants in Cultivando’s 2025 Environmental Justice Youth Internship. We know their words will touch your heart and inspire you to be powerful during these difficult times.

Cultivando is an organization that cultivates the leadership of the Latino community to promote health equity through advocacy, collaboration and social change. Through our Promotora model, grassroots leaders who live in Commerce City and North Denver recruit and engage their peers on community-informed solutions to health inequities. To date, Promotoras support community members in creating a thriving and growing multigenerational network of leaders who are active through workshops, storytelling, public hearing testimony, interactions with the media, and other learning and leadership development opportunities.

Words To Power conducts highly engaging, culturally relevant, and SELfocused spoken word poetry workshops for underserved youth in elementary, middle, and high schools in the Denver metro area and throughout Colorado. As an extension of our workshops, we partner with schools to host presentations of youth poetry. Words To Power publishes an annual book of youth poetry with submissions from our workshop participants.

Every summer, we host book release events with contributors reading their poetry for their families and the greater community.

Table of Contents Liberty in Originality by Amir Leonardo G (age 13) ..................................... 1 Proud Kid by Angel Morales (age 13) .............................................................. 3 Standing Up to Hate by Angel Morales (age 13) ............................................ 4 The Change by Angela Orenday (age 13) ........................................................ 5 What We Want by Josue Hernandez (age 13)................................................. 6 The Power by Natalie (age 13) .......................................................................... 7 Stories of Strength by Logan Garcia (age 14) ................................................. 8 We Are All The Same by Anthony (age 15) .................................................... 9 El Poder por Jouleyka (15 de edad)................................................................ 10 Language Of The Lost and Future by Edgar Navarro Torres (age 16) .... 11 Determination by Fernando Andrade (age 16) ............................................. 12 The Strength by Eduardo Molina (age 17) .................................................... 13 Motivation by Reina Navarro (age 17) ........................................................... 14

Liberty in Originality by Amir Leonardo G (age 13) I carry the strength of my past in my hands.

With my voice, I can create my future with my family's culture.

I have the power of my people.

We reach out to immigrants, remembering their sacrifices, their struggles, so we can surpass them.

With our hands, we bring unity.

We bring justice to our ancestors.

We will never forget our roots, where we came from.

They give inspiration to the power inside us.

We connect to those who cannot speak for themselves.

I surround myself with my community, so they can reach the world, so we can speak words to power and affect the president.

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We, as the community, have power to be free with family, friends, and our people.

Words To Power

Proud Kid by Angel Morales (age 13) I am a proud member of the Hispanic community.

We get discriminated against for being Brown.

They say we are aliens.

I come from proud people who work so that they can move their family to a better life so they do not struggle.

In my dreams, I imagine a world with no discrimination against Hispanics.

In reality, I know that that will never happen.

They say we do not belong here but half of this is our land that they stole.

In the mirror, I see a little kid who is not afraid of where he is from.

He is not afraid of being judged.

He is just a proud kid.

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Standing Up to Hate by Angel Morales (age 13) They hate my brown skin.

They hate my brown eyes.

They hate that we will represent those three colors with our life.

They love our culture, our food, yet hate us.

I am an alien in their country but in mine, they are tourists.

The discrimination will never stop but never feel ashamed of where you are from.

Be proud of your culture.

Viva la raza!

Words To Power

The Change by Angela Orenday (age 13) I am the future.

I am the change.

I will carry my ancestors’ determination.

I come from our past, from all the voices of the people who came before me.

In the mirror, I see someone who wants to make my ancestors proud.

In my eyes, I am someone from the past reborn.

I have the power to make a change.

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What We Want by Josue Hernandez (age 13) With our voices, we can say what we want but not be heard because of our color.

We speak for each other when we say, “We want freedom!”

In our hands, we carry the hope of our future, wishing the best for our people.

We could give this country everything but they would still think of us as illegal aliens.

Together, we could protest to be heard.

Even if they try to stop us, our community will not stop until we get the freedom we deserve.

We are people who want a good life, without fear that ICE might come and take our people at any moment.

We will never forget the struggle our ancestors went through as we fight for our freedom.

Words To Power

The Power by Natalie (age 13) With our voices, we can speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.

In our hands, we carry our future to make it better for people who never hand the chance.

We can bring our community together to make it a better place as we grow more united and strong.

We are the voice of hope, the hands of change, the power of tomorrow.

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Stories of Strength by Logan Garcia (age 14) I am the future of my people, the strength of my ancestors burning through me.

I come from a family of hard work, struggles, and dreams, their sacrifices molding my very being.

In the mirror, I see a person proud of what he has achieved, holding with a tight grasp everything dear to me.

In my dreams, I imagine a life without worries, a foundation as strong as metal to hold up the stories of my family.

Words To Power

We Are All The Same by Anthony (age 15) With our voices, we can talk even when some might not listen because of our skin color.

We speak for each other, not just for yourself.

In our hands, we hold the world of success.

We have the power to change what is happening.

Together, we can make the world a better place, even if we are different people.

We find strength within ourselves.

We are humans who should be heard.

Our ancestors will always give us motivation from inside our head.

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El Poder por Jouleyka (15 de edad) Soy el futuro y la sonrisa de mi familia.

Vengo de una comunidad en donde todas las personas son amables y culturales.

Con nuestras voces, podemos expresarnos y comunicarnos.

Inspiramos a nuestras familias.

En nuestras manos, tenemos nuestro control de sentir y enfocarnos.

Juntos, podemos hacer las cosas mejores y ayudarnos entre nosotros.

Nuestro futuro es para la familia.

Somos humanos con valores y decisiones propias.

Somos un grupo de personas honradas.

Tenemos el poder para motivar a los demás.

Words To Power

Language Of The Lost and Future by Edgar Navarro Torres (age 16) I am the voice of the future.

I carry the hopes and dreams of my ancestors.

I come from a heritage full of pride.

The story of my people and the courage they have shown flow through me, as I strive for a better tomorrow.

I carry the weight of the lost, their hopes and dreams on my shoulders, our shoulders.

We speak for those who cannot.

We reach out for the silenced.

Our words share the power of the lost who fought for us.

We fight so the next generation will not have to.

We have the power to share the language of the lost.

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Determination by Fernando Andrade (age 16) With our voices, we can uplift each other and give everyone a sense of hope for themselves.

Words give inspiration to keep going in life.

In our hands, we carry the will to reach our dreams.

Our future is determined by how far we get in life and whether we have the strength to do it.

Together, we can help each other when we are at our lowest.

We can find the strength within ourselves to strive.

We are strong, and we can do it, no matter what.

Once we reach our goal, we will never forget what it took to achieve our dreams.

Words To Power

The Strength by Eduardo Molina (age 17) I am the strength of my dreams and visions for a better tomorrow.

I come from my parents’ sacrifices and struggles, the source of my motivation.

In the mirror, I see all my ancestors’ hard work and sacrifices which have led to my path, my future.

In my dreams, I imagine my future and what it holds.

With our voices, we can make an impact on others and their beliefs.

In our hands, we carry our future, shaping it with our actions.

Together, we find strength to wake up, inspire, and motivate our community.

We are the power of our roots and the dreams within our ancestors' sacrifices.

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Motivation by Reina Navarro (age 17) I am a girl who over-thinks every situation, worried her brown color will be a problem in the future but still proud of her Mexican heritage.

The strength of my roots allows me to withstand the storms of life, grounding me in who I am.

Through every trial and every test, I stand tall.

I come from a family who did not have much growing up.

The struggles my parents went through have motivated me to work harder.

They sacrificed too much for me to give up on my dreams.

They have endured criticism, being called “aliens” on stolen land, all for my siblings and me to have a better life.

With my words, I reach out to the future me who looks back to the little girl who never lost her dreams, and still believes in the beauty of her soul.

Words To Power

In my dreams, I imagine myself making my parents proud.

I believe that I have the power to push myself beyond my limits to complete my goals, knowing I am capable of anything I put my mind to.

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