Architecture
Landscape Architecture
Interior Design
Historical Preservation
Program Development
The Centro Cultural de la Raza
San Diego, CA / 2018 ~
The Centro cultural de La Raza, the epicenter of Chicano
movement, found me and asked if I could help them redesign
their center, re-brand, and revive the forgotten organization.
I began by bringing a team of students from San Diego State
to brainstorm. I brought Chicano students, as well as students
from Mexico, China, Philippines, Spain, the Middle East, the
Midwest, and New England.
The first meeting was very awkward. For one, I didn’t really
know the historical tension between Chicano people and the
rest of San Diego. And second, the board members didn’t
know how the people at the center would feel about non-
Chicano people being involved in making decisions for the
future of the Chicano center.
After eating, drinking, talking, and arguing together, everyone
realized that, for a culture to celebrate its history and its
future, we have to be inclusive. We have to invite and welcome
outsiders to come in and help them learn and understand us,
but also we have to listen and understand them.
My students and I developed renovation schemes and new
programing, and presented them at the fundraising event we
helped organize.
Cesar Chavez, a founding member of the Cento,
was an American labor leader and civil rights
activist who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded
the National Farm Workers Association (later the
United Farm Workers union, UFW) in 1962.