Plaza at 20: Its Dreams, Hopes and Controversy

For 20 years, Plaza de La Raza has been an arts and cultural oasis on Los Angeles’ Eastside. But it still labors under what its executive director, Gema Sandoval, calls nagging misconceptions.

Some think Plaza de La Raza has tons of money.

One group of people says it is only interested in Latino culture; conversely, others accuse it of overlooking its Latino heritage.

Some think it deals only with traditional arts; others that it focuses too much on contemporary arts.

“Because there are so many desires and dreams, the (Latino) community sees it as many things,” says Sister Karen Boccalero, director of Self Help Graphics in East Los Angeles.

Plaza de La Raza was created two decades ago by journalist Ruben Salazar, unionist Frank Lopez, then community development executive Esteban Torres and actress Margo Albert as a way to build cultural understanding through the arts and provide a center to enrich the Latino community.

Community members agree that Plaza, as it is commonly known, has met those goals but many believe it has not achieved its full potential.

Plaza “needs more visibility,” says choreographer Bella Lewitzky.

Boccalero believes that Plaza has to look at its own resources and “say, ‘What do we have the most history and experience in’ and focus on that part of the arts.”

Councilman Richard Alatorre feels that “it needs an infusion of more money to carry out the mission that it would like to ultimately achieve as being a properly funded institution where the creative energies of young Hispanics can be realized. There are detractors who believe that it has not been as responsive as it should be to the community.”

Film maker and former Plaza instructor Severo Perez feels that Plaza is under-promoted, “under-using its facilities and not presenting enough public events.”

Michael Alexander, former executive director of performing arts in the Los Angeles City Cultural Affairs Department, disagrees with Plaza critics.

“We have to recognize that with resources being what they are, how difficult fund raising is, that there are limits. I think that Plaza de La Raza, which is unique, is certainly going to be a target at times of ‘Why aren’t they doing this or that.’ They seem to be working to the capacity of their resources.”

Plaza gives the community an “art experience that brings the outside world to the community and makes them aware of it,” says choreographer Rudy Perez. “It’s the closest thing for me in terms of being in touch with my roots,” added Perez, who teaches modern dance there.

Plaza today consists of a gallery, the 175-seat Margo Albert Theatre, the Ruben Salazar Bicentennial Building that houses the visual arts program, and buildings for administration and the dance and music programs. They are located at Lincoln Park, flanked by gum trees on one side and a placid lake on the other.

But a few years ago, things were not proceeding as smoothly. Albert, whose vision and dedicated energy had fueled Plaza’s progress, died in 1985. Then in 1987, two employees were fired and a lawsuit was filed against Plaza’s board, accusing them of excluding the instructors and parents from the decision-making process. Severo Perez, a spokesman for the critical group at the time, said some instructors and parents felt cut off by an executive director who did not speak Spanish.

“What we were really talking about was change,” says then-Executive Director Alida Amabile. “We were attempting to modernize, to give students greater challenges. Some of those changes were very threatening to certain people. The organization had to prove its stability programmatically and fiscally. We had to demonstrate that Plaza was going to thrive.”

The lawsuit, although later dropped, affected funding, says board President Roland Hernandez. “We’re really dedicated to trying to improve classes for the children,” says Hernandez. With the problems, he says, Plaza had to “wholly regroup. You lose a year in the process and the people who are affected are the children.”

In 1987 and 1988, Isabel Castro and Dan Cruz succeeded Amabile but both left for personal reasons. In August, 1988, Sandoval became Plaza’s executive director. A former vice principal of John Adams Junior High and the founder of Danza Floricanto USA, Sandoval says she brings an ability to create quality programming and solid administration to Plaza.

With her staff of eight, Sandoval sees her mission as improving programming and classes and “to create a lot of great citizens who will be very disciplined in what they want to do.”

Working with a budget of $600,000 from government and private sources, Sandoval says money is tight and she has had to cut some project budgets by 75%. “It doesn’t make me popular, but we have managed to meet every payroll since I’ve been here,” she says proudly.

In the past, exhibits by muralist Alfaro Siqueiros and feminist painter Frida Kahlo gave Plaza a name for focusing on the art of Mexico and brought wide attention.

But today, because of budget restraints, the accent is on local programming. The Nuevo LA Chicano series introduces new Mexican-American art and artists to the wider cultural community. “Art Works” opened the series in 1988, followed by “Theatre Works” in 1989.

This year, “Music Works” is being presented June 29 and 30 with Los Lobos as hosts. Winning composers, chosen by Tito Puente, Jimmy Espinoza from The Midnighters and Tierra’s Salas Brothers, among others, will perform their works and then join in a giant jam session with celebrity guest artists.

Plaza also offers “Insights With an Artist: Conversations With . . . “ and guest workshops that have featured Lewitzky, Juan Talavera and Latins Anonymous.

Plaza’s educational arm, which teaches “children to value themselves, never has enough money,” laments school coordinator Denise Nelson-Nash. The founder of Bottom Line Dance Collective, Nelson-Nash became coordinator in 1988 and manages both the Community Development Department’s free classes for children from 4 to 18 years old, as well as the recently introduced Conservatory program, for which students from 10 to 18 audition and pay $35 per course.

The faculty for both after-school programs “could be at any university, but they choose to work here because they want to contribute to the community and the children are special,” says Nelson-Nash.

The Plaza school offers classes in visual arts, dance, music and, the weakest link, theater.

The theater program is about to get a boost from a new partnership with California Institute of the Arts, which is sending a specialist in children’s theater to work with 30 students ages 12 to 18. The project will teach acting, script writing and other techniques and result in a bilingual production of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town,” to be called “Nuestro Barrio.”

A prelude to the program is this summer’s Performance Arts Workshop, which will show 40 children how to “write and develop their own projects and take them from the creative to the performance aspect,” says Sandoval.

In the future, Sandoval and Nelson-Nash hope to incorporate non-European history in all classes. “It’s very important for Plaza to establish the fact that European-based art forms do not necessarily tell our story,” Sandoval says. “It doesn’t mean that we don’t exist. It means that we have to define how we exist now and in the future.”