Ana Hernandez is the new executive director of the Centro Cultural de la Raza, but pursuing work that focuses on building community, preserving culture, and advocating for justice is something she’s been committed to her entire career.
“I know I have some skills that will be useful to Centro at this stage, but I am honored and humbled that anyone, especially people with so much credibility, knowledge, and history within and among them, might think any of this of me,” she says of the organization’s board, volunteers, and staff looking for someone with experience in nonprofit development and leadership, community organizing and advocacy, and who prioritizes collaboration. “This role is important to me to contribute everything I can to Centro, in order to earn that trust, to continue my own learning and growth, and to have the opportunity and responsibility of doing this work in community.”
Since taking on this new role at the end of February, she’s currently working on the center’s two-year “Borderlands Visions” project, which came from a $500,000 grant in 2023 to hire staff for the purpose of “the continued growth and stability of this historic cultural center in the heart of Balboa Park serving Chicano/a/x, Latino, Mexicano, Indigenous peoples and community.” The organization, which preserves and promotes Latino, Chicano, Mexican, and Indigenous art and culture, is also currently hosting an exhibition in honor of Women’s History Month, “Connecting en la Cocina: Empowerment, Resistance & Wisdom-Keeping,” featuring various forms of artwork by 26 artists through April 7.
Hernandez, 54, lives in Hillcrest and has previously worked as a senior analyst at the Equality Federation and at the National Latin@ Network for Healthy Families and Communities, and as interim executive director for Centro de Trabajadores Unidos: United Workers Center in Chicago. She took some time to talk about her new role here in San Diego and what she’s learning about the culture and community of her new home.
Q: You have an extensive history of working in positions that support people with disabilities, victims of domestic and sexual violence, the LGBTQ community, civil rights work, labor, immigration, and economic justice.
How does this history of work in these various areas inform your approach to your new role at Centro Cultural?
A: Without exception, people in communities and across identities with whom I’ve worked have been taught, implicitly or explicitly, both that art and culture are not for you — and that art and culture in the U.S. does not represent you because you don’t really belong, at least not in and to the heart of this nation. We also hear “fine art” is not political, it’s somehow transcendent, and so many more myths intended to keep the creation, curation, and valuation of art as rarefied endeavors. This is not only about arts and culture, it’s an issue of self-expression, censorship, and erasure. I am certain, for example, that in marginalizing migrant farmworkers, we stop people from telling their stories and processing their experiences at personal levels, let alone influencing culture, policy, and institutions. And so, we keep the canon tight.
Centro Cultural de la Raza exists in joyful, prolific defiance of these norms. We emerged from the San Diego Chicano Movement, as a means to honor identity, culture, and power; name injustice; and demand change. We know art is political, therapeutic, inherent, uncontrollable, and the birthright of every person, and to this day, we continue to work to foster the conditions to create, preserve, promote, and educate about our artistic and cultural traditions and futures, especially for people who are systematically denied these opportunities and support.
What I love about Hillcrest…
The architecture of people’s homes, abundant gardens, my thoughtful neighbor, proximity to Centro Cultural de la Raza.
Q: Can you talk a bit about the exhibition currently on display at the center for Women’s History Month?
A: “Connecting en la Cocina: Empowerment, Resistance & Wisdom-Keeping,” is a multidisciplinary artistic observance that seeks to dismantle the kitchen as “a space that has traditionally reinforced strict gender roles, [in which] women have enacted these sites of dreaming and continue to unlock potentialities,” according to the curator statement. Proceeds from our opening event earlier this month, and visitor donations received during the course of the exhibit, will go toward a commercial kitchen for Centro. “Connecting en la Cocina” features installation, mural, painting, photography, film, sculpture, drawing, linocut print, text, collage, and digital illustration by 26 artists. In keeping with the idea that the kitchen is also “a space where generations of mujeres come together to organize, to imagine better worlds, to theorize, to write, create, discover, and give birth to new ideas,” the two installations each honor missing and murdered Indigenous women and the farmworker women who grow our food. “Connecting en la Cocina” is up through April 7, and Centro’s hours are from noon to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday.
I know also that it has been impactful for young women and students to see themselves, their culture, and their home practices with their families in the kitchen reflected in some of the art, and many have come back with their mothers or grandmothers to experience the exhibition.
Q: How would you describe your experience, so far, of the local cultural scene here? Particularly through the lens of your work preserving and promoting Latino/Chicano/Mexican/Indigenous art and culture?
A: That’s a challenging question, because I am so new here. One of my first impressions is of dynamism—things are constantly shifting, growing, and evolving, while remembering and paying respects to our roots. On my first visit to Chicano Park, people were both working on existing murals and painting new ones on just-prepped blank pillars. More generally, I love that San Diego loves murals! I attended my first tianguis (Centro’s monthly artisan market) last fall and got to chat with one or two of the artisans, about the market and their work. I was struck by their deep love and commitment to community. For example, one who sold beautiful handmade notebooks was there to raise funds and awareness for a collective of medical professionals who provide wound care and essential services for people at the border and in Tijuana. And I remember early on hearing a story on the radio about a forthcoming investment in public art at a transit station, in part because it’s known that public art can make us kinder and more thoughtful people, and I loved the idea of a town that would invest resources in this way.
I also see things that trouble me—the cost of living is astronomical, people are unhoused, it is not a coincidence that recent flooding affected sectors with majority people of color populations, we have a duty of care and accountability to the more than 32,000 Palestinians who have been killed, and asylum seekers are being subjected to structural and interpersonal violence, for example. I go to Centro to engage with and support people who know our freedom is inextricable, and while grappling with these realities, also seek to create ways to build and express solidarity and new futures.
Q: What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
A: There is much greater purpose and joy in life than pleasing other people.
Q: What is one thing people would be surprised to find out about you?
A: I have unabashed and profound love and respect for all animals; my current chosen family includes a tri-pawed dog (she’s a cancer survivor) and an FIV-positive cat.
Q: Please describe your ideal San Diego weekend.
A: Still pretty low-key, as I am metabolizing the experiences of being at Centro Cultural de la Raza. Produce shopping, in part because it’s a gorgeous sensory experience in California, especially in an open-air market. Lots of yoga, maybe a short run in Balboa Park. Resuming my writing practice. Ocean Beach’s Dog Beach at sunset. A few meals out (San Diego has amazing restaurants). Mutual aid work in support of asylum seekers. I often work weekends, but we don’t schedule meetings, so I can more easily spend time in the garden, chat with visitors and volunteers, and see what workshop participants might be creating, in between doing my work.