Xochitl Manzanilla
The Flower that Blossoms in LA State Historic Park
Written and photographed by Robin Fong
“This park is for everybody. It's been for everybody.”
Xochitl Manzanilla, park volunteer, has been with LA State Historic Park (LASHP) since before its inauguration in 2017. As a Promotorx, Manzanilla is a certified park volunteer committed to increasing park engagement and advocacy. The Promotorx program gave Mazanilla the resources and foundation to build something of her very own: an art workshop for park visitors.
Manzanilla’s workshop offers a space to nurture a relationship between nature and creativity, and to discover the possibilities that emerge from it.
Manzanilla’s given name — Xochitl (SO-chee) — means “flower” in the Indigenous language Nahuatl. Her workshop offers classes in painting and paper crafts, like piñatas and flowers of all kinds: “Small ones. Big ones. Native flowers.” Flowers, to Manzanilla, represent celebration. They are meant to be given to other people in bouquets, to adorn altars for Día de las Muertas. They require love and care to nurture, but when they bloom, they spread joy to others around them.
Manzanilla is a longtime resident of William Mead, a public housing project on the outskirts of Chinatown, two blocks from the park, making her a viable candidate for the pilot class of the park’s Promotorx program in 2016. Before LASHP, the surrounding neighborhoods of William Mead, Chinatown, and Solano Canyon had been historically park-poor. The Promotorx program was an initiative of LASHP to connect local community members to park resources and education, and, in return, the Promotorx created their own programs to enhance the park experience for visitors. The program has since been renamed the Community Engagement Fellowship, but if you ask around, Manzanilla is still dubbed one of the original Promotorx.
As a part of her training, Manzanilla travelled to state parks all over California, where she took certified classes in nutrition, hiking, and kayaking, among other topics. When it came time for Manzanilla to create her own program for LASHP, she formed the workshop “Art in the Park with Xochitl.”
For a decade, Manzanilla’s workshops have been the site of a unique blend of creation and permanence. People come to the park, make something with their own hands, and leave with something that belongs to them. The workshop creates more than art. It creates a sense of belonging.
“When the people of this park are making art they are happy. They are happy they have something to keep for years, to show all their family. I’m glad that I am still here!”
Much like the flowers created in her workshops, Manzanilla has grown with the park. She has taken the resources provided by LASHP and has cultivated something of her own. Today, her workshop continues to give back to the people of the park. Her vibrant energy can be felt by the attendees of her workshop, where creativity, nature, and community come together. In an almost prophetic way, Manzanilla has become a blossomed flower of LA State Historic Park.
“I chose this program and I am still here because no one told me I have to go.”
Maybe all this Xochitl needed in order to bloom was a place to belong to.