Promoting a just wildfire recovery through arts and culture

Wildfire relief

San Gabriel Valley

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

In the wake of the Eaton fire, impacted communities, specifically Black and Brown residents continue to face devastation, displacement, and disconnection from resources. Immigrant workers at the forefront of rebuilding efforts face dangerous working conditions and lack PPE. As the initial spotlight on the disaster fades, there is a critical need to create space for healing, build bridges among impacted communities, and ensure immigrant workers and working-class communities are centered in long-term recovery planning. Following a robust initial response, NDLON remains committed to ensuring a safe, just, and equitable recovery for immigrant workers and vulnerable populations. As part of this commitment, we are working to ensure that immigrant day laborers and other low-wage workers have the information, training, and equipment needed to safely work in fire-impacted areas and supporting community organizing efforts to ensure that impacted residents are able to safely return and rebuild.

This project will activate arts and culture as a central strategy in a just recovery initiative for fire-impacted communities in Altadena and Pasadena. Led by the Pasadena Community Job Center, which NDLON operates, the effort will launch a series of mobile concerts, cultural events, and art installations that bring attention to ongoing recovery needs while creating spaces of healing and collective joy. NDLON will utilize its mobile stage to bring concerts to fire-impacted areas with performances from our own day laborer band, Los Jornaleros del Norte, along with local artists. We will invite local muralists to adorn the mobile stage with a mural that captures the vibrancy of a collaborative community recovery. These events will also serve as hubs for recovery information and organizing that builds power among impacted Black and Brown communities as they advocate for a safe, inclusive, and just recovery. The work builds on NDLON’s 20-year legacy of using arts and organizing to build trust, develop leadership, and shift narratives around immigrant and low-wage workers. Our response to the Eaton fire has shown how immigrant workers are essential to community recovery. Now, through this initiative, we aim to sustain momentum, bring communities together, and demand a long-term, equitable recovery rooted in justice, dignity, and care.

If successful, this work will model what a people-powered, arts-infused recovery can look like—where joy and justice go hand-in-hand. Fire-impacted neighborhoods in Altadena and Pasadena will be visibly transformed by murals, music, and community gatherings that reflect and uplift local Black and Brown residents. The project will foster stronger cross-racial relationships, deeper community engagement, and a shift in public perception around immigrant and low-wage workers’ role in recovery. It will build lasting infrastructure—both digital and cultural—that supports tenants’ rights, worker safety, and community-led rebuilding. Ultimately, this work will influence how recovery is envisioned countywide: centering those most impacted and drawing power from cultural resilience.