Local 17-year-old girl wins prestigious Congressional art contest

The artwork of a San Fernando teenager now hangs in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington D.C. after she won a prestigious art contest, and her winning piece was created using supplies from the Dollar Store. 

Childhood photos of Danella Vigil show a beaming smile while playing with her three siblings in parents' native El Salvador. What the photos do not show was a child hood interrupted by what the 17-year-old Vigil said was the pressure to grow up too quickly. 

"We were raised to help our brothers, help around the house, cook and clean, basically become a mother figure," the 17-year-old told CBSLA. 

Vigil said those demands weren't placed on the boys in her family or in most Latino homes she knows. 

"I don't think it's right. Every child deserves to have their own childhood," she said. "They deserve to play in the playground, instead of cooking and watching the kids. I feel like it's deserved." 

It's that feeling that inspired Vigil to paint what she titled "In Youth We Trust." The painting shows a Latina teen wearing a veil and cradling a teddy bear. 

"Just the way she's holding it, as if it were her child, it brings back the maturity that is pushed upon her," Vigil explains. 

The 17-year-old created the painting in just a day, using supplies that she could afford. She now lives in the U.S. with her grandmother to pursue her education, thousands of miles from her mom and dad back in El Salvador. 

"I do use a bunch of cheap products, from Walmart, Five Below or Dollar Tree," she said. 

Vigil attends Mission High School in San Fernando. It's a continuation high school and it serves some of the poorest and most at-risk students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. The principal told CBSLA that people often want to write off these kids, but that they are some of the most resilient kids she knows. 

Principal Amy Trinidad said she first noticed Vigil's talent when the teen gave her a birthday card. 

"And she did this little drawing, and I was asking the teachers, 'Hey, is she an artist?' and they said, 'Yeah, she's such an amazing artist," Trinidad said. 

That's when the Mission High School Principal got an idea and encouraged the 17-year-old to enter her painting in a Congressional art competition. Congressman Tony Cardenas ended up choosing "In You We Trust" as his district's winner. The message of the painting resonated with the Valley native. 

"I grew up in a home where I'm the youngest of 11, six girls and five boys," Cardenas said. "The five boys got to off to college anywhere in the world we got accepted, but the girls had to stay home and they had to go to local schools...because, and I will quote my parents, 'No daughter of mine is leaving the home before she is married.'"

Vigil's painting now hangs in the House of Representatives. It will be up for a year, and she got to visit the Capitol last month, right after she graduated from from Mission High School. She now has plans to study early childhood education, in order to become an elementary school teacher. Another motherly role, but one the teen is choosing on her own this time.