National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures

NALAC originated in 1989 on San Antonio’s West Side, a historically Mexican-American neighborhood. A few years earlier, the West Side had seen the emergence of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, a pioneering effort to secure municipal funding for local Chicanx arts and culture. Inspired by this project, a small group of artists and advocates created NALAC to promote Latinx arts and culture at the national level. 

During its first several years, NALAC focused on advocacy and outreach. To this end, the organization convened regional workshops and national conferences, completed a first-of-its-kind national survey of the Latinx arts sector, developed mentorship and leadership programs and forged connections with a broad network of stakeholders.

After considerable groundwork, in 2005 NALAC launched its primary grantmaking fund, NALAC Fund for the Arts (NFA), to address the problem of severe underinvestment in the Latinx arts by mainstream U.S. cultural institutions. By 2022, NAF – still the only national grant program that invests exclusively in multidisciplinary Latinx arts and culture – had dispersed USD 7.5 million to 1,266 grantees (including individual artists, arts administrators, ensembles and organizations) across 33 states, as well as Puerto Rico and Mexico.

Alongside its grantmaking, NALAC fosters Latinx leadership across the U.S. arts landscape through three training programs that serve diverse, intergenerational cohorts of practicing artists, teachers, arts administrators and cultural workers at various stages of their careers. Introduced in 2001, the NALAC Leadership Institute (NLI) is an annual week-long fellowship for Latinx non-profit arts administrators and cultural workers to build their skills in strategic planning, programming, budgeting, communications, fundraising, evaluation and other core aspects of management.

Created in 2009, the NALAC Advocacy Leadership Institute (ALI) equips participants with the knowledge and skills they need to represent the interests of Latinx arts to elected officials and public institutions that shape U.S. cultural policy, including the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, the Smithsonian and others. Launched in 2017, the Intercultural Leadership Institute (ILI), is a collaborative effort to build solidarity among Black, Indigenous and Latinx arts organizations for the broad advancement of cultural equity.

As NALAC nurtures creative talent, innovation and leadership across the U.S. Latinx arts sector, the organization also conducts ongoing research to assess the evolving field and identify opportunities to support its growth. 

NALAC’s work is guided by the belief that art is a powerful vehicle for change, and that a flourishing Latinx arts sector is critical for advancing social equity, economic inclusion and the enduring value of Latinx cultural heritage in the U.S. As longtime NALAC executive director María López De León said to Sampsonia Way magazine in 2016: “We cannot build a community without art.”

Contributor: Erin Brown