Centro History
CENTRO’S HISTORY
In 1970, after utilizing the abandoned Ford Building (Aerospace Museum), community members and artists began attending City council meetings to acquire the site as a center for art and culture. The community was awarded an abandoned water tank in Balboa Park that came to be the Centro Cultural de La Raza.
The Centro has been a sacred space instrumental in Chican@, Latin@, and Indigenous art and culture. Some of today’s most influential artists grew through the Centro: Los Lobos, Culture Clash, Lalo Alcaraz.
The Centro Archival Collection at
UC Santa Barbara’s California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives (CEMA)
Scope and Content of Collection
The Centro Cultural de la Raza archives represents activities at and involving CCDLR and its members between 1971 and 1999. The collection consists of 8 series contained in 156 archival boxes occupying approximately 67 linear feet of space. The archival material includes but is not limited to administrative/personnel records, grant/funding requests and applications and event/program/project documentation, as well as collected research on various artists, political figures (politicos) and a wide variety of topical themes from agriculture to racism.
The archives include organizational records, films, videos, slides, photographs, posters, exhibition catalogs, and the manuscripts for published and unpublished works. Included is an extensive collection of clipping files and correspondence files on Chicano issues in the San Diego area.