In this article, artist, educator, and activist Luis-Genaro Garcia describes the development and impact of the "May Day service learning project" on his advanced painting class in a high school in South Los Angeles. The project emerged from students' interests: their ideas, concerns for their community, socio-political consciousness, and most importantly, their primary language, culture, and history as bilingual students. The project examines the historical and cultural experiences of Spanish-speaking students and demonstrates how culturally relevant and arts-based methods of critically exploring history, language, culture, politics and visual literacy impact the academic outcomes and political awareness of marginalized youth. Furthermore, it brings attention to the importance of developing caring and relevant pedagogies within arts-based critical approaches to teaching students with immigrant backgrounds in Los Angeles. The May Day service-learning project also fulfilled a number of goals, including completing the students' service learning requirement for high school graduation in California, addressing a community issue significant to students' experiences, and establishing a connection between the classroom and students' environment.