May 16, 2016

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Executive Director Aaron Lorenz steps down

Dear La Peña Community,

It is with great regret that I must step down as Executive Director. We have come to the realization that the ongoing challenges that La Peña faces exceed my skills and experience. I will continue to support the center in any way that I am able through the coming transition.

I am enormously grateful to all of you for our shared commitment to La Peña’s mission and our belief that this center is greater than the individuals who comprise it. I encourage you to support the center in this time of change and to continue to provide the sense of continuity and purpose, which has been La Peña’s hallmark for so many years.

In Solidarity,

Aaron Lorenz

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In this letter we hear from Hector Salgado, a long-time La Peña community member who arrived to the U.S. after being exiled from Chile after being imprisoned at the age of 16 during the Pinochet coup. He represents many exiled Chilean’s opinion on Felipe Kast being invited to  UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business’s Latin America Conference on April 1, 2016

Berkeley, CA  –  I found appalling to see UC Berkeley extending an invitation to Felipe Kast from Chile. Mr. Kast is a former member of Pinochet’s political party UDI and his family, are all well known supporters of the Pinochet dictatorship.

I have included a link here (In Spanish) that connects Mr. Kast family to the massacre of 22 families in the South of Chile. Obviously, Mr. Kast can’t be responsible for the actions of his family. But, as a congressman and a former supporter of Pinochet, he has refused repeatedly to speak about this horrendous crime. After 40 years, the families of Paine are still looking for justice and their disappeared family members. It’s time he confronts this issue, especially in Berkeley where a great majority of the Chilean Exile Community settled after the brutal 1973 coup by dictator Pinochet .

During the last few days Mr. Felipe Kast has been involved in heated discussion in congress about the issue of abortion. One memorable intervention became a theme for all Chileans during the last few days: “No sé de dónde salió la idea de que la mujer tiene derechos sobre su cuerpo”. “I don’t know where did the idea that women have rights over their bodies came from “. That’s your guess for you!

He is also against: 1.Same-Sex Marriage 2.The emergency contraception pill 3.The regulation of life in gay couples 4.The adoption of children by gay couples and many more issues.

As far as we are concerned, the issues are not only about human rights, but also about the fundamental civic rights for our people. Rights that here in California and in Berkeley, in particular, are protected by law.

Therefore it is very hard for us to understand that an institution like UC Berkeley, which has been connected with La Peña Cultural Center and the Chilean Exile Community for the last 40 years, decides to invite such a divisive “politician”.

The Nazi background of his family, his political background as a member of UDI, the political party created by dictator Pinochet and his silence regarding the massacre of the 22 people of Paine on October 16, 1973 makes this person unfit to be a guess of UC Berkeley.

You can tell UC Berkeley’s school of business how you feel by contacting them here.