Reading Time: 5 minutes Wearing a serene smile, 18-year-old Xavier stood amid a crowd at a downtown gallery, pointing out an artwork with painted layers of blue and green, anchored by earthy brown triangles at the bottom. The piece, created while he was incarcerated at the local juvenile hall, now hangs inside the Merced Multicultural Arts Center. Xavier, who the Merced FOCUS is only identifying by his first name, is among the teen participants…
This story is only covered by news sources that have yet to be evaluated by the independent media monitoring agencies we use to assess the quality and reliability of news outlets on our platform. Learn more here.