About
the Centro Cultural de la Raza
San Diego's Centro Cultural de la Raza was founded in 1970 as
a Chicano Community Cultural Center and functioned as an alternative
space that encouraged and facilitated artistic growth and cultural
interchange in the San Diego/Tijuana region. The Centro's mission is to
promote preserve and create Mexican, Chicano,Indigenous and Latino art
and culture.
The Centro has given birth to many artistic groups, such as
MALAF, the Mexican American Liberation Art Front, and Teatro Mestizo.
It also provides art classes and drama, music, dance and arts and
crafts Presentations, many of which have origins in Mexico and
"Aztlán," a term used by Chicanos to indicate the American
Southwest. Tours and presentations have been designed to give
background on various cultural activities. The Centro's circular
building has offices and workrooms, studios, a theater, and much wall
space for mural projects. It is one of the largest Chicano cultural
arts buildings in the Southwest.
Groups that formed through the work of the Centro include:
Ballet Folklorico en Aztlán, founded by Herminia Enrique;
Congreso de Artistas Chicanos en Aztlán, founded by Salvador
Torres; and Trio Moreno, a musical group, the Taco Shop Poets, BAWTAF
(The Border Arts Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo) and countless
artists, musicians, performers, writers, dancers and activists who
would achieve national prominence in the arts and culture community.
Throughout it first three decades, the Centro was a dynamic
incubator for the best and brightest Chican@/Latin@/Mexican@ and
Indigenous performers in the region. Some the artists who were nurtured
at the Centro include Los Lobos, Culture Clash, Gronk, Guillermo Gomez
Peña, Lalo Lopez Alcaraz, the Taco Shop Poets, Yareli Arizmendi,
James Luna, David Avalos, Dora Areola, Chicano Secret Service, Richard
Lou, Robert Sanchez, Isaac Artenstein and Calaca Press.
The Centro was known internationally a dynamic cultural center
where academics such as Shifra Goldman, Tomas Ybarra Frausto and Chon
Noriega could be found conversing with community members as well as
artists such as Magu, Luis Valdez, Judy Baca, Sergio Arau, Lalo
Guerrero, Jose Montoya, Barbara Carrasco, Gabino Palomares and El Vez.
The Centro was known internationally a dynamic cultural center where
academics such as Shifra Goldman, Tomas Ybarra Frausto and Chon Noriega
could be found conversing with community members as well as artists
such as Magu, Luis Valdez, Judy Baca, Sergio Arau, Lalo Guerrero, Jose
Montoya, Barbara Carrasco, Gabino Palomares and El Vez.
List of books that were published by or reference
Centro
Email us to add more titles and/or information to the list
below!
The Centro has published exhibition
catalogues, poetry series and children’s books. It is also referenced
in a number of publications such as Made in Aztlan: Centro Cultural de
la Raza, Fifteenth Anniversary, among others. The list below is a
sample:
• Maize
poetry series
• Tula y
Tonan children’s book series
• The Border
Art Workshop, 1984-1989 Exhibition Catalogue
• The
Broken Line/La Linea Quebrada
• La
Frontera/The Border, Art About the Mexico/United States Border
Experience
• Fragmentos
de Barro
• Separate
but Assimilated: Latino Immigrant Communities and their Museums
• Rebozos of
Love
•
Nationchild Plumaroja
•
“Immigrants in Our Own Land”: A Chicano Literature Review and
Pedagogical Assessment
• The Bronze
Screen
• Postborder
City: Cultural Spaces of Bajalta California
•
Negotiating Performance
•
Globalization on the Line: Culture, Capital and Citizenship at US
Borders
• A
Companion to Cultural Studies
• The Fence
and the River: Culture and Politics at the U.S.-Mexico Border
• Poor
Dancer's Almanac
• Race and
Politics: Asian Americans, Latinos, and Whites in a Los Angeles Suburb
• Mexicanos:
A History of Mexicans in the United States
• The
Ethnic Eye: Latino Media Arts
Chicano Art Inside/Outside the Master's House: Cultural Politics and
the Cara Exhibition
• Rethinking
Borders
• The
Expediency of Culture: Uses of Culture in the Global Era
• Hispanic
Spaces, Latino Places: Community and Cultural Diversity in Contemporary
America
• Under the
Fifth Sun: Latino Literature from California
• Anglos
and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836-1986
• More
Adventures with Kids in San Diego
• Dimensions
of the Americas: Art and Social Change in Latin America and the United
States
• Lonely
Planet Coastal California
• Chicano
Drama: Performance, Society and Myth
• The
Latino Holiday Book: From Cinco de Mayo to Dia de Los Muertos: The
Celebrations and Traditions
• Calling
California Home, A Lively Look at What It Means to Be a Californian
• With
Other Eyes: Looking at Race and Gender in Visual Culture
• From
Totems to Hip-Hop: Poetry Across the Americas, 1900-2002
• Lowrider
• De Paseo:
Curso Intermedio de Español
• Feminist
Rhetorical Theories
• Local
Motion: The Travels of Chicana and Latina Popular Culture
• Barrio-Logos:
Space and Place in Urban Chicano Literature and Culture
• Urban
Exile: Collected Writings of Harry Gambia Jr.
• Breaking
Boundaries: Latina Writing and Critical Readings
• Race-Ingo
Art History: Critical Readings in Race and Art History
• A
Hispanic View: American Politics and the Politics of Immigration
• Women
Making Art: History, Subjectivity, Aesthetics
• Contested
Terrain: Diversity, Writing, and Knowledge
• Radical
Media: Rebellious Communication and Social Movements
• San
Diego: California's Cornerstone
• Contemporary
Trends in Landscape Architecture
• Border
Writing: The Multidimensional Text
• Celluloid
Nationalism and Other Melodramas: From Post-Revolutionary Mexico to Fin
De Silo
• MidAmerican
• O Solo
Homo: The New Queer Performance
• Chicana
Feminisms: A Critical Reader
• Reading
California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900-2000
• Space,
Site, Intervention: Situating Installation Art
• Other
Sisterhoods: Literary Theory and U.S. Women of Color
• Shot in
America: Television, the State, and the Rise of Chicano Cinema
There are many more newsletters,
magazines and chapbooks that reference either the Centro or certain
events or exhibitions of the Centro.
Website redesign by Victor Payan and Jocille Flores Ady
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