Image: Fragment from a cardboard sign created sometime in 2024

Kind light / Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and doodles without borders,
^{*morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind light” (բարի լույս [baree looys])}

DEAR READERS, PLEASE NOTE: the newsletters from now on will be coming directly from/as the blog posts! (no longer from mailchimp). If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out.

Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud, (3) Quote of the Month.
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***SUPPORT Doodles by supporting Arts Depot*** 
1) THE T-SHIRTS ARE HERE! Doodles and Arts Depot journey into swag has begun:) Get one by donating $30 or more to Community Arts Depot
2) Become a sustaining member at $5/month or more (or donate once $50 or more) & get an exclusive t-shirt and art print or wordoodle of your choice.
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HIGHLIGHTS in and near Skid Row neighborhood, March 2026
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

1. TODAY: Fri, Mar 6, 7pm: Movie Night “The Farewell” at Skid Row Museum
2. Sat, Mar 7, 2pm: NO WAR ON IRAN – Protest @ LA City Hall
3. Sun, March 8, International Working Class Women’s Day.
   24 Hours of KPFA’s International Women’s Day (IWD) 2026 Programming airs Sunday, March 8th at 6 am PST to Monday March 9th until 6 am PST (at 8:30AM PST Other Armenias podcast representing Non-Western Feminisms)
4. Wed, March 11, 7pm: Hotels In Crisis (AGAIN) – WHAT TO DO? – at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
5. Thu, March 12, 10-11:30a:  Skid Row Arts Alliance Community meeting with SRAA MicroGrant presentations and a mosaic workshop with Dawn Mendelson
6. Fri, Mar 13, 5-7pm: OPEN MIC at Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
7. Fri, Mar 20, 7pm: MOVIE NIGHT @ Skid Row Museum
8. Sat, Mar 22, 12-4: César Chávez Family Day at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes
9. Fri, Mar 27, 5-7:30: OPEN MIC @ Skid Row Museum
10. Fri, Mar 27, 7pm/ Dusk: Outdoor Movie Night by StopLAPDspying
11. Sat-Sun, Mar 28-29: 10a-6pm: Chumash Day Native American Powwow in Malibu (24250 Pacific Coast Hwy, Malibu, CA 90265; from Skid Row: Metro E Line, then Bus 134)

Pa/est/ine + Skid Row Actions: some places to find local downtown LA and nearby actions that make local Skid Row to global connections: Pal Youth Movement – LA, Organize – LA, StopLAPDSpying, LACAN

SAVE THE DATE / ONGOING
• Hotels in Crisis exhibit at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway), Museum hours are Thu, Fri, at 2-5pm.
• Save the date: May 23, Skid Row neighborhood’s Walk the Talk 2026

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least FOUR regularopen mics currently in Skid Row:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – (2) 1st/3rd Fridays 11a-1p: BuckFest at Care Campus (442 S Crocker) by Urban Voices,  (3) every 2nd Friday, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St) (on break til Feb 2026); (4) every last Friday of the month, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)

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THOUGHTS ALOUD
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SAY that
LOVE, JOY, and COMMUNITY are all anti-american?

Just one rubric to bring the point home: in LA region alone, at least 1.5 MILLION housed tenants are rent burdened, meaning these fellow tenants take away from food, from medicine–let alone putting a bit of money aside for an emergency fund, or (how dare we!) a little vacation–so rent can be paid. That is predictable state sanctioned vio/ence, fear, devastation as well as condition for homelessness (72,000 are unhoused in LA County currently, and that’s just the official figure) is vio/ence and dea/h on MASS SCALE.

u.s. empire is brilliant at lulling the minds of many us living in the imperial core (inside united states) with seeming conveniences, with normalizing our own oppressions, and looking past the obviousness of this empire being a local and global machine of mass vio/ence and mass dea/h.

Plus add this:
– 7 unhoused tenants die predictable, preventable dea/hs in LA County EVERY DAY
– the deeply anti-Black, anti-Indigenous, anti-Latino/e nature of the united states creates the divisions necessary to maintain its all encompassing anti-poor, anti- working class politics, which are central to the 250 year old regime’s very existence
– ICE raids and kidnappings are wh/te sup/emacist cruelty–of anti-Native bounty hunters, of “slave patrols” and of police departments–made more visible again,
– state vio/ence against trans and queer people and women is rampant,
– the colonial, often geno//dal campaigns in Pa/estine, Lebanon, Congo, Sudan, Venezuela, Cuba, now Iran, and beyond are the global mirror to the “domestic” policies: amplified scale of vio/ence and devastation

What does it mean to want to live a “normal” life in u.s. empire, when this is the reality of u.s. empire?

Skid Row neighborhood as one of many places that know that these struggles are nothing new, and that voting itself has never changed things. Only organized community action beyond voting. Skid Row is a hyper local reminder of the irreformable mu/derous vio/ence of u.s. empire. Skid Row is affected by the same oppressions AND is part of the interwoven practices of resistance.

LOVE, JOY, AND COMMUNITY are not themselves resistance, but they are the things the empire craves to take away here and everywhere in the world, and they are the things we must band together collectively, locally and transnationally to defend, practice, and keep.

None of us are free, until all of us are free.

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QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“without us imperialism
i would be home

between saffron
and za’atar

not learning
the taste
of exile”

@daliah.lina

– Daliah Lina, Palestinian-Iranian Radical Poet | Anti-Racism Educator

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dwb ONLINE:
1) Doodles without Borders (dwb) is now on Instagram / Facebook. 
2) There is a monthly dwb Skid Row Community & Arts Calendar. If you do community strengthening work in Skid Row and know of an event/meeting that should be on there, please share. 
3) dwb wishlist!  You can find it here: bit.ly/dwbwishlist 

Able and interested to SUPPORT Doodles?
Support Artwork Storage as a Human Right (and Collective Responsibility)
Community Arts Depot is a sister project addressing the vital need for artwork storage and access focused on Skid Row neighborhood members and residents. Artwork Storage as a Human Right – a glimpse from the Community Arts Depot story. This project’s sustainability is deeply dependent on grassroots support.  To donate to the campaign click HERE!
Email us for donating directly via Venmo, Paypal, or other ways.

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For previous newsletter(s), go to www.doodleswithoutborders.com homepage

doodles without borders is just starting to scratch the surface ոֆ our collective, abolitionist, liberatory work and I look forward to much much more together!

With much love and joyful commitment to universal equitable access to housing, healthcare, education, arts and cultural spaces, and a strong and vibrant community locally and globally, across timezones, beyond borders, 
Հայկ [hike] / Hayk