Our Asian American and Pacific Islander communities called upon some familiar superheroes to show us the power of community arts! Our team of researchers surveyed Asian American and Pacific Islander (AA and PI) organizations and conducted in-depth case studies on community arts initiatives to answer the question: how can art expand a community’s cultural, economic, and political capacity in our fight for racial justice? Through this recently released top secret research, the Capacity Rangers were born! Together, these six superheroes help us better measure and understand the impact of community arts in AA and PI communities across the county.

Six Rangers, Six Capacities

• Blue Ranger is Knowledge! He helps us gather, learn and pass on history, experiences, and traditions of people and places. What a nerd!
• Black Ranger is Creative! He uses arts and culture to help communities express and define themselves and envision the future.
• Pink Ranger is Relational! She builds a connected community through groups, organization, networks, and coalitions.
• Red Ranger is Political! He helps influence decision-makers and helps communities be more involved in neighborhood planning and policies.
• Green Ranger is Economic! He identifies, mobilizes, and expands community assets and resources. And he’s green like money!
• Yellow Ranger is Affective! She’s the life of the party and helps foster a sense of belonging, collective pride and identity, and a shared future.

Capacity-building often focuses on organizational capacity or how an organization can run more effectively or gather more resources. These six capacities provide a more nuanced framework for assessing the impacts of both AA and PI community organizations and their arts initiatives. It also provides a new vocabulary for communities to talk about the power of the arts.

The arts remain especially powerful in generating tangible as well as intangible, yet, deeply felt benefits—ones that often underpin longer-term social and political change. In Seattle, Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority (SCIDpda) and Friends of Little Sài Gòn’s public park projects can be seen through the lens of four capacities. Building off their longtime history and trust in the community (Knowledge), they designed the parks in close collaboration with residents, businesses, organizations, and city agencies (Relational), and advocated for and won improved public spaces and resources (Political). In NYC, Think!Chinatown’s night market built more than just Economic capacity for its vendors; it transformed an unused public space into an intergenerational community gathering (Relational), provided a crucial platform for local emerging artists (Creative), and mobilized the city to support small businesses and social services to support unhoused residents in the plaza (Political).

AA and PI organizations reported that arts initiatives are uniquely suited to build a sense of connection and cultural pride (Affective). Through collective listening, storytelling, and imagination, artists create experiences that bring communities together, honor a community’s history and experiences, and envision a more joyful future. These efforts in turn can lead to more political engagement and advocacy (Political).

The findings highlight how arts initiatives build community in specific and impactful ways, while underscoring the importance of sustained investment, institutional support, and strategic design to maximize community impacts. Thus the arts, when thoughtfully designed, implemented, and funded, can play a vital role in culturally-based community development to strengthen communities across the country. By building interconnected community capacities—the Capacity Rangers!—maybe the arts are like superheroes that lead and sustain our neighborhoods.

Learn more about this research and the separate report Weaving Thriving Communities, which focuses on the specific history, arts and culture of our Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islander communities, at www.nationalcapacd.org/creative-placemaking/.

Erika Gee is an educator, community planner, and cultural worker. She oversees National CAPACD’s creative placemaking program and is involved in the organization’s neighborhood and place-based efforts. Her love is developing programs for connection and action, like the ones she designed for San Francisco’s Chinatown Community Development Center and museums and historic sites in Los Angeles, New York, and the Bay Area.

Scott Oshima is a Seattle-based artist and activist whose work unearths the personal and political history in our city streets. Their photography, films, and performances have been exhibited at MOCA Los Angeles, JACCC, LA Contemporary Archive, and LA Asian Pacific Film Festival. Three books of their photography, art, and writing have been published by No Style Press. Scott works at 4Culture and is the former director of the Sustainable Little Tokyo creative placekeeping initiative. They laugh a lot and loudly. www.o-shi-ma.com | @oshimadoesart.