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We are excited to announce that our rockstar Programming and Marketing Manager, Consuelo Tupper Hernández, and longtime Board president and lifetime LP community member, Paloma Salazar, have assumed the roles of Interim co-Executive Directors at La Peña. We are grateful to this dedicated and talented team for taking the helm and leading La Peña through this transition after parting ways with our former Executive Director last week.

During her three years working at La Peña, Consuelo has expanded our programming offerings from being closed due to the pandemic to over fifty special events per year, leading the way to a diverse calendar that centers marginalized communities and models equitable, reciprocal & sustainable forms of collaboration. Consuelo’s commitment to building deep and long-lasting relationships with artists, culture bearers, activists and allies has resulted in new partnerships that we are so grateful for and that we can’t wait to continue to grow! Paloma, for her part, has been involved with La Peña for over 30 years. Born and raised in Oakland, and daughter of a Chilean exile who moved to the Bay Area in 1978, she spent her childhood at La Peña and has been involved ever since. Paloma worked to revitalize our space during the economic recession 2010-2015, and she had previously house managed, volunteered, and ran the sound board for many of our events!

We are confident that Consuelo and Paloma together will make La Peña stronger throughout and after this transition, as we reorganize ourselves and prepare for a Summer & Fall Seasons full of community celebration, historically grounded events, film festivals, concerts, classes, workshops, and more!

Certainly, there’s a ton of work ahead of us. The funding landscape is always tricky for organizations like La Peña that center the arts, culture, and political struggles of BIPOC communities, and today is no different. Despite these challenges, as we approach our 50th Anniversary next year, our staff and board are committed to seeing La Peña grow and thrive for another fifty years!

We invite you to be an active part of this new chapter of La Peña: this transition is a great time to get involved! View our calendar and attend a class or upcoming presentation; become a member and enjoy special perks including discounts & free events; or show your support by being a volunteer!

With much love and appreciation,
LP Team & Board

Dear LP Community,

After 8 years of service, I am transitioning out of La Peña and passing on the baton to our incredible professional team that we’ve worked hard to develop over the years. It’s been an honor and a privilege to work in service of this extensive and powerful community and I take away many memories and much respect for everyone who has shown up to support. I leave La Peña feeling more inspired and certain that arts and culture are essential to our well-being.

Running a nonprofit and serving the community through the arts is a true labor of love and we’ve overcome roadblocks together as a coalition of sorts. I am especially proud of the team culture we have developed; it is our greatest asset in uplifting this community ecosystem. Each of us brings our own set of skills, lived experiences, cultures and communities of origin to represent the voices of the people we seek to serve.

We came together both in the good and the challenging times, supporting each other during the pandemic and, before that, recovering from the ripple effects of the 2008 recession. The fact that La Peña endured these crises, when many arts organizations closed, is a major testament to the great work we’ve carried out. Former co-director Bianca Torres and I strove to find solutions to a slew of challenges, breaking through systemic barriers of funding access. The effects of racism, colonization and other forms of oppression have left BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) arts organizations under-resourced and undervalued. Over the years we joined forces with many other groups to fight to change that and had many successes. From being selected into the LANE program, to co-chairing the Berkeley Cultural Trust’s (BCT) Equity & Inclusion Committee, to joining forces with multiple coalitions to bring in more arts funding to our city, region and state, we worked hard to have our community’s voices heard at decision-making tables for more equitable arts funding. It is important that we continue to push to position La Peña not at the bottom of the pyramid of funding, but rather, to be considered an important actor in how this landscape gets more equitable. When La Peña is better-resourced, our extensive community networks of artists, cultural workers, community organizers and activists wins. 

I’m proud of the fact that during my tenure we were able to lean into this hunger for justice to bring in resources and grow the professional team from three to six people. We established liberatory structures so the team could catch up between seasons, and supported them by establishing living wages, health insurance, increased vacation time and other important benefits to offer better work-life balance. These changes were implemented at the pace that funding and collective decisions allowed, resulting in the conditions you see today.

Simultaneously, we successfully fundraised and executed the replacement of a dilapidated roof; installed solar panels; brought the building up to code; repaired the restaurant, upgraded to better sound and AV equipment; invested in the next generation of artists and cultural workers; grew our volunteer program tenfold based on manageable shift times, reciprocity and attractive programming; grew our events team while retaining and hiring exemplary community leaders; created intentional programming and set up conditions to combat systems of oppression; established community agreements; institutionalized land acknowledgements with action; and deepened our relationships with our community through partnership and collaboration.

I know you will continue carrying this collective vision for this space and the great work that it creates. 

While I’ll be shifting my focus to other community-driven projects where I will continue to advocate for equity and justice for our community, I will continue to support La Peña and all of you. Thank you to everyone who participated and showed up for one another. I see you and appreciate you.

Lastly, but most importantly, I want to give a heart-felt thanks to my family, my ancestors, my mentors, my friends, and my partner Arturo for nourishing me so that I could show up for us.

All the LOVE, all the POWER, and all the NEWEN to each one of you.

Natalia Neira Retamal
Executive Director
Lapena.org