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
|
