(NAME-MCE) Grand Opening of Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural at Sylmar Plaza

[Bill Howe]

For Immediate
Release

Media Contacts:
Arlene Mejorado or Luis Rodriguez
 (818) 528-4511 or (818) 898-0013
Emails: info at tiachucha.com or luis at luisjrodriguez.com

Grand Opening of Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural at Sylmar Plaza
"Renewing Community through Arts and Culture"
With Honored Guests, Music, Dance, Poetry, and More

March 28, 2009 4 PM to 9 PM
at 13197-A Gladstone Ave., Sylmar, CA 91342

LOS ANGELES (February 25, 2009)-Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural & Bookstore
celebrates its relocation to the Sylmar Plaza with a Grand Opening themed
"Renewing Community through Arts and Culture" on Saturday, March 28, 4 to
9pm with guests Latino/folk/experimental band La Santa Cecilia, experimental
reggae rock band Fosforo, Hip Hop artist/MC Olmeca, female poets and singers
Ahwomb Collective, spoken word artist/poet Funkahuatl with former Doors
drummer John Densmore, resident Aztec dance group Temachtia Quetzalcoatl,
Las Cafeteras joined by resident Son Jarocho students, resident Guitar
students with Alejandro Laborde, and Nahuatlaka ancestral music ensemble led
by Juan Pueblo. Author/Activist/Professor Rudy Acuña and other special
guests will also be attending. There will be vendors, community resource
tables, food and drinks, video presentations and more, with updates
announced on our website www.tiachucha.com. The event will be hosted by Tia
Chucha's co-founder and acclaimed poet, writer, and author of fourteen books
Luis J. Rodriguez. The event is free to the public.

A unique bookstore, art exhibit and cultural space with a seven-year history
in the Northeast San Fernando Valley, Tia Chucha's Centro & Bookstore will
continue to make the arts, dance, music, writing, theater, indigenous
cosmology, and literacy the centerpiece of an on-going economic/cultural
revival in the largely neglected Northeast Valley communities. Tia Chucha's
artistic and educational resources are a much-needed creative stimulus in
the midst of these hard economic times.

"In fact, it's precisely in hard times that the arts become the engine for
community renewal and regeneration-the only way through today's chaos and
uncertainties is with creativity," asserts Luis Rodriguez, author of the
best selling memoir, Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in LA.

Tia Chucha's new location is off the 210 Freeway, Hubbard Street exit, left
at the Gladstone Avenue signal light, in the new yellow structure (across
from the Rite Aid store). This is the third location for Tia Chucha's. After
five years of bringing remarkable events and programming in Sylmar, Tia
Chucha's moved to a temporary location in Lake View Terrace, offering music
workshops, mural painting workshops, Aztec Dance, Young Warriors youth
empowerment meetings, Open Mics, film nights, author readings, writing
circles, musical events, healing circles, and community dialogues.

Answering the call to return to Sylmar, the non-profit Cultural Center &
Bookstore will expand on it's extensive arts and literacy projects,
including an annual Celebrating Words Festival, slated for May 23, 2009 at
Sylmar's El Cariso Park; and an annual benefit event called Celebrating
Community & Culture: Si Se Puede/Yes We Can! to be held August 2, 2009 at
Hollywood's renowned Ford Amphitheater. This year the benefit will feature
the Colombian musical group Very Be Careful, among others.

Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural & Bookstore is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit
organization that provides arts/music/writing/dance/theater workshops with a
bookstore, internet access, art exhibits and performance space. It also
houses Tia Chucha Press, which recently celebrated twenty years of
publishing quality cross-cultural poetry from around the country; a CD
production project, Dos Manos Records; and Young Warriors, an arts-based
youth empowerment project.
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Bill Howe
Asian Pacific American Coalition of CT http://apaact.com/
Personal Website http://www.billhowe.org
Multicultural Dimensions http://www.multiculturaldimensions.org
Travel Blog http://billhowe.org/BillBlog/
Multicultural Education Blog http://billhowe.org/MCE/