Rushing Waters, Rising Dreams: Tia Chucha’s and the Role of Art Activism in Los Angeles

• In Event: Spaces and Arts of Critical Intervention

Abstract

This paper explores the lack of neighborhood cultural spaces over the last twenty years in the Northeast San Fernando Valley/Los Angeles and the role of Art Activism in transforming and regenerating communities. Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural and Bookstore was co-founded by the award winning Chicano author Luis J. Rodriguez in 2001. The Northeast San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles is the second largest community of Mexicans and Central Americans in the United States with 500,000 people. Yet, until 2001 the Northeast Valley had no trade bookstores, movie houses, art galleries, or decent cultural spaces. The overall mission of Tia Chucha’s is to create a space where the community can dialogue, share ideas, organize, and learn skills in the communicative and visual arts. With programming of Arts in public schools diminishing or many times just eliminated, organizations like Tia Chucha’s fill that void and need. Luis J. Rodriguez writes, “The arts have consistently proven to be the most effective means to lift the most desolate areas and to bring together fractured communities. Economically the arts gather creative energy and allows for new visions, new ideas and expanded imaginations to stabilize neighborhoods and extend economic potential”. Therefore, this paper demonstrates how artistic and educational resources are a much-needed creative stimulus. And more importantly, Tia Chucha’s is an example of the transformative power of the arts for Chicano/Latino communities in Los Angeles and speaks to need for the creation of more cultural centers/arts organizations in the City of Los Angeles.

Author

• Denise M Sandoval, California State University, Northridge