Tia Chucha's, a very important cultural center in the LA area, to be replaced by laundry machines: your support is needed

[http://www.tiachucha.com/]

Tia Chucha's must move--but our Spirit, Creativity, and Unity are intact!

Just after the holidays, Tia Chucha's Cafe & Cultural Center was served with a notice forcing us to move. We have to leave by February 28, 2007. A powerfully energized and thriving bookstore/cafe/performance space/cultural center is to be replaced by high-tech laundry machines. The laundry company is apparently investing $8 million in the strip mall, something we can't compete with.

Maintain a vibrant community space? Of course not! Instead, make way for another laundry outlet! That's capitalism. Money follows money, not needs, not literacy, not community, or cultural expression. In the world we've inherited, most creativity and expression has to make big money, or it's out.

We created a space that requires a lot of personal and community investment. The community came to embrace Tia Chucha's and make this space its own. We plan to take the spirit, creativity, and unity we helped nurture to a temporary site as we plan and prepare to obtain a larger permanent site in the Northeast San Fernando Valley .

This is a time to come together, strategize, and work to keep Tia Chucha's viable as a cultural center while we explore our options. We will not give up. We will find a temporary space; we will also curtail our retail operations while we concentrate on our programming, events, outreach, fundraising, and growth.

We ask that you strengthen our efforts and sign this petition in support of Tia Chucha's coming back stronger, bigger, and better endowed than ever. We need this written support to show the various developers; city, county, and state agencies; and foundations that this community will fight for the arts, music, dance, theater, writing, film, publishing, and a vital gathering place where we can share ideas, history, politics, economics, and our indigenous traditions and thinking.

Our strategy this year includes implementing a fundraising plan with a 5th Anniversary event at Tia Chucha's on February 17 . We will also have another "Celebrating Words: Written, Performed & Sung" festival at Sylmar Park on May 19 . And we have been approved to do a benefit event for Tia Chucha's at the Ford Amphitheater in Hollywood on July 29. Sign up for our e-mail newsletter here on our website up at the top, or call 818-362-7060 for more information.

--Luis J. Rodriguez [http://www.luisjrodriguez.com/]

Co-founder and Creative Director,
Tia Chucha's Cafe & Centro Cultural


How You Can Help!!!

Come into the cafe and sign the petition!!!

Attend a community meeting held at 11243 Glenoaks Blvd., Suite 1 Pacoima, CA 91331 on Wednesday, January 17@ 12 noon. Voice your opinion and let the city of Pacoima know that you support Tia Chucha's and request that they consider us as a prospective bussiness for the new shopping center being built on Paxton St. on the old Price Pfister Factory site. Volunteer!!! We will need assistance at our Anniversary Celebration and with the transition to our new temporary space. Interested volunteers can email Tia Chucha's at chuchamail@aol.com


* Luis J. Rodriguez, Co-founder and Creative Director of Tia Chucha's Cafe & Centro Cultural is also a prominent Chicano writer in Los Angeles, autor of "The Republic of East L.A.: Stories", "Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A.", and many more important titles. [More on his website: http://www.luisjrodriguez.com]