LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes (LA Plaza), Los Angeles’ first Mexican American cultural center, will celebrate its grand opening with an exciting slate of activities on April 16, 2011. Located adjacent to the popular Olvera Street marketplace and El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument (where Los Angeles was founded in 1781), the 2.22 acre facility, part of the Los Angeles County Arts Family and a Smithsonian Affiliate, celebrates the influence of Mexican and Mexican American culture on Los Angeles and Southern California.
LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes (LA Plaza) will open its doors to the public with a day-long free family celebration. From 10am to 4pm, visitors will enjoy live music, arts workshops, founding membership discounts, and tours of major exhibition LA Starts Here!. Performers will include Los Angeles vallenato favorites VeryBeCareful, tropicalia soul masters Chicano Batman, and East L.A. fusion rockers Ollin. Mask-making, sculpture, paint, and print-making workshops will be conducted by Inner-City Arts and LAartlab.
What’s La Plaza?
Surrounded by 30,000 square feet of garden and housed within the newly renovated Vickrey-Brunswig Building and Plaza House on Main Street in downtown, LA Plaza invites visitors to both explore and contribute to the ongoing story of Mexicans and Mexican Americans in Los Angeles.
On the center’s second floor, hands-on interpretive history center Calle Principal takes children and families back in time to the Mexican American community of 1920s-era Main Street Los Angeles, when the area surrounding LA Plaza was the heart of the city’s growing immigrant community.
Open by appointment, community history center Centro Yo Soy invites visitors to record their own cultural experiences; while original short film series Voces Vivas, on display throughout the campus, features a broad spectrum of Mexican Americans sharing their personal histories.
Tickets for April 16 Grand Opening events are free, but must be reserved in advance by logging onto lapca.org or by calling 213.542.6254
