Alas y Raíces: Princeton Young Achievers

Opening Reception: Saturday, July 11, 3-5pm

Like the monarch butterfly, each of us carries a story of where we come from and where we are going. Its migration between Canada, the United States, and Mexico reflects lives shaped by memory, family, change, and return.

Alas y Raíces presents work by students in kindergarten through fifth grade at Princeton Public Schools through papier-mâché monarch butterflies and painted butterfly compositions on canvas. The sculpted works reference the monarch’s distinctive orange, black, and white pattern, while the painted works extend into varied colors and forms, shaped by imagination, freedom, and individual expression.

As students created these works, they explored ideas of family, belonging, kindness, unity, freedom, and hope. Their work reflects how personal experience informs understanding, how difference strengthens community, and how connection and care shape growth.

This exhibition is a part of a collaboration between the Arts Council of Princeton and the YMCA, which together have provided free access to the arts for the Princeton Young Achiever’s after school Program for more than 20 years and lead by teaching artist Verónica Olivares-Weber.

Veronica Olivares-Weber, originally from Mexico, is a teaching artist and community organizer whose work spans more than two decades at the intersection of art, education, and social justice. Deeply connected to her heritage, her practice is rooted in preserving Latin American art traditions, storytelling, and community empowerment through the arts.