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Pictured: “Song of Unity” mural in front of La Peña Cultural Center. The 15-by-40-foot mural includes symbols and iconic figures, the most prominent being Chilean folk singer Victor Jara, who was executed by the Chilean military junta in 1973. Others depicted in the mural are Mexican-American labor leader Cesar Chavez, Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, folk singers Woody Guthrie and Malvina Reynolds and Native American activist Bill Wahpepah. This mural was originally painted in 1978 and the current version was painted in 2013.
Who We Are
Since 1975, La Peña Cultural Center has been a central site for Latinx, Caribbean, and Indigenous diasporic communities of the Bay Area to preserve and celebrate cultural traditions, present new interdisciplinary creative works, and to nurture grassroots social justice movements with artists, activists, and allies. Our founding as a “peña”—or place offering music, food, and political support to cultures of resistance in South America in the 1960s-70s—has guided our program of challenging dominant narratives and centering marginalized positions for nearly fifty years, and we proudly stand as the last such “peña” still in existence today.
Our Story
La Peña was established in Berkeley, California in 1975 as a community space inspired by the “peñas” of Chile, which are community gatherings centered around music, food, drink, and culture where community members are in dialogue with each other around current issues.
La Peña was started by a group of Latin American & Californian allies as a direct response to the military coup in Chile that overthrew the democratically elected socialist government of Dr. Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973. As a result, it is estimated that at least 30,000 Chileans were killed, disappeared, tortured, and exiled all over the world. In 1975 La Peña opened its doors and became the center of the anti-Pinochet dictatorship movement in the United States – a space for community meetings, art activism and multicultural solidarity.
Since then La Peña has become the home, hub and catalyst for hundreds of diasporic communities promoting social justice and cultural understanding through the arts, education and community action.
Our Mission Statement
Rooted in the Latin American and Caribbean diaspora, La Peña Cultural Center collaborates with and unites communities by preserving and celebrating cultural traditions; producing creative new works; and nurturing global grassroots social justice movements with artists, activists and allies.
What We Do
With the community’s support, La Peña presents a broad spectrum of events over the year, including concerts, community gatherings, panel discussions, theatre performances, film screenings, art exhibits, fundraisers and more. La Peña also commissions and produces special projects by local artists, and presents internationally renowned artists. La Peña also holds space for daily classes and workshops for children and adults, such as Mexican son jarocho; Afro Peruvian cajon and dance; Brazilian Capoeira Angola; Puerto Rican bomba & plena; Cuban salsa, timba, and danzon; as well as community yoga.
Classes at La Peña
La Peña is a cultural homeplace where every week, toddlers, children, teens and adults study the musical and performance traditions that have nourished struggles of resistance, sustained cultures, and contributed to the well-being of communities. These roots performance traditions have managed to flourish despite long and complex histories linked to colonialism in the Americas that led to censorship and neglect. They have often been excluded from mainstream recognition by official histories, public radio, and school music curricula. Roots Arts classes encourage us to think beyond consumer approaches to performance in order to become producers and creators of our own culture. These inherited traditions have often thrived for centuries underground. They can also be revolutionary, thought-provoking, healing, and inspiring. Our class selection throughout the years reveals the extension of the communities we serve, including classes in: jazz, folk, nueva canción, blues, flamenco, tango, plena, rumba, son jarocho, West African dance, capoeira Angola, salsa, bomba, samba, forro, Afro-Peruvian cajon, and hip-hop classes and performance.
[Click here to see our current classes]
Events At La Peña
La Peña has always been an internationally known performance center. Every year, we host or present a wide range of music, dance, theater and spoken-word events; art exhibits; book talks; and public dialogues. Focusing primarily on the arts and progressive movements of the Americas, we’ve featured up-and-coming local artists as well as internationally known figures like Pete Seeger, Lila Downs, Pablo Milanes, Roy Brown, Mercedes Sosa, Paco de Lucia, Atuahalpa Yupanqui, Taj Majal, Holly Near, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Grupo Raíz, Quilapayún, Inti-Illimani, Los Folkloristas, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Ana Tijoux, Muñequitos de Matanza, Eddie Palmieri, Bomba Estereo, Rebel Díaz, and Quetzal.