The week marks the unfolding of the Mexican Heritage Plaza’s signature event: the annual Avenida de Altares celebration tied to Dia de Los Muertos. The community event carries additional meaning this year, which marks the 25th anniversary of La Plaza.
Avenida de Altares was started by two artists who used to do a traditional danza performance and combined it with Day of the Dead festivities. Former Director of Community Engagement Chris Esparza, who passed away in early August, brought the two groups together to the Mexican Heritage Plaza and established the first Avenida de Altares event.
According to Esther Young, community engagement manager at the School of Arts and Culture at the Mexican Heritage Plaza, “Chris wanted their vision to specifically activate the corridor, where we have a lot of small businesses. He wanted people to walk along the streets, drawn in by the beautiful ofrendas.”
The altars that line the lobby of La Plaza and the corridor outside are beautifully decorated, relating very personal stories of death and loss and also homages to life, love and relationships. They are on view now leading up to the big event on Nov. 2, starting at 5:30pm, which will feature performances by headliners Las Cafeteras as well as Los Lupenos, Bloco do Sol, Calpulli Ocelocihuatl and others at La Plaza and community hubs along the Alum Rock corridor. In addition, there will be arts and crafts, food and drinks, and lucha libre demonstrations.
Young and fellow altar curators Santi Garcia and Rojana Ibarra filtered through artist applications this year for altars selected for the event. According to School of Arts and Culture Director of Community Engagement Edgar Ochoa, “They take a lot into account as they’re making their selections in regards to showing the traditional altars some people may anticipate seeing at an event like this. And then something that may have a modern take, or nontraditional look to it, that some folks might not expect.”
Birth of La Plaza
Ahead of the Mexican Heritage Plaza’s ribbon cutting on Sept. 9, 1999, the late Raul Lozano, then the executive director of Chicanx theater company Teatro Visión, said that the new facility erected on the east side of San José “signifies a validation of the Mexican-American contribution to the Bay Area landscape. It presents an opportunity for Mexican-American and other multicultural arts organizations to present ourselves to the community at large.”
Twenty-five years later, La Plaza, as it’s known, remains a beloved multicultural facility in the predominantly Mexican American neighborhood where it was originally built.
Housing over six acres of reception and classroom facilities, a museum, and a performing arts theater, the $35 billion project spanned ten years of planning and construction on a lot at King Road and Alum Rock Avenue that once was occupied by a radiator repair shop and a wrecking yard.
There was an expectation that, once constructed, it would be a beacon of economic and social growth in the midst of a small business district that included tire shops, taquerias and tattoo parlors.
Built by the city on the site of one of the first boycotts for farm workers’ rights organized by César Chávez, La Plaza suffered from a lack of organization in programming, forgoing long-term relationships with local arts groups and cultural institutions and instead opting for one-off events and sporadic activity year-round.
In 2007, a community assessment determined that the Mexican Heritage Plaza should become a school in order to utilize the facility to its maximum potential. Two years later, a steering committee created a business plan; a year later, the city unanimously approved the committee’s recommendation to create the nonprofit known as the School of Arts and Culture. And in 2013, the school became the Mexican Heritage Plaza’s official operator.
“The Mexican Heritage Plaza is city-owned, and we, the School of Arts and Culture, are the team that is tasked with managing the Plaza because it hasn’t always been [managed] the way it is right now,” Young says. “We bring in revenue with clientele at the market rate and then we give a lot of that revenue away in the form of really deep discounts given to community partners or individuals that put on events that are great for our community.”
True to its mission of focusing on community and cultural development and enrichment, the school remains as collaborative as ever, working with 60 multicultural institutions annually to provide diverse programming. La Plaza’s core partners include music and arts nonprofit Mosaic America, contemporary japanese drumming organization San Jose Taiko, Chicanx theater company Teatro Visión, Mexican folk dance group Los Lupeños de San José and the Cashion Cultural Legacy, dedicated to preserving Mexican folk culture through dance.
“At the end of the day, it’s just about listening to the community and working with their ideas in an organized fashion,” Young says.
What Lies Ahead
Eyeing the future, School of Arts and Culture Director of Production Ira Jones says, “We are looking to name the cultural district that the Plaza and the school wants to help found in San José, after the event. We want to call the cultural district La Avenida.”
Jones adds, “In pursuit of the cultural district, we would be able to offer and establish certain protections to the neighborhood against gentrification and against outside financial or political forces having more say over what happens to the residents and community members here than the community members and residents do themselves.
“By building this beautiful event that grows outside the walls and welcomes so many in, to show off the color and beauty of the culture, we establish a tone, we establish an identity, for more and more folks that may not be here day to day. So that when we move into more advocacy and political spaces, like the cultural district’s the Avenida, we’re getting to self-define, to tell our own stories, and have ownership over what happens and doesn’t happen in our neighborhoods and in our backyards.”
Prior to his passing, Esparza had a heavy hand in the visionary elements of Avenida. Ochoa explains, “He played a big role in everything we do, but especially when it came to putting on large events for the community.”
“We are in the process, currently, of reevaluating as an organization led by co-executive directors, who is going to fill his shoes,” Ochoa says. “I think we’ll need almost multiple people to fill his shoes. There’s nothing but high praise for what Chris did for San José and the Plaza. Chris was a visionary for community and cultural work in San José.”
In the meantime, Ochoa and Jones work collaboratively to lead events at La Plaza. When it comes to the creation, scheduling, and vision of what they want the community to experience, they work with a multicultural team of experts in video, lighting, marketing and community relations.
“So we ask, what do we keep traditional and what is contemporary? And we’re always trying to figure out that balance,” Ochoa says. “We love to see the expansion and inspiration of celebrations beyond the [Mexican Heritage Plaza] events themselves.”
Altars and Artistry
At Avenida de Altares, larger-scale altars line the lobby of La Plaza, featuring artistic takes with traditional elements that remain on display for an extended period. Since lobby space is limited, smaller altars are set up the day of the event for one day, alongside the Alum Rock corridor.
Rooted in the Mexican celebration of the Day of the Dead, year after year Avenida de Altares deepens ties to community and culture.
“It’s exposure at the minimum level,” Ochoa says. “I come from a Mexican immigrant family. I’m first generation—born and raised in San José, Spanish is my native tongue. Growing up, I was always exposed to Mexican traditions at a day-to-day level: Mexican food, Mexican music, Mexican movies. When you think of immigrant families, sometimes survival is what you focus on. How do you pay rent, how do we create a better future for our children and their children, and so on. I didn’t grow up doing anything for Day of the Dead.
“When I think of myself and of those that now get this exposure—whether they’re just attending and getting the visual stimulation of seeing the vibrancy, seeing the imagery of skeletons and loved ones—they’re gaining an understanding that death, or whatever the afterlife holds, is not a scary thing,” Ochoa continues. “We’re asking questions about what’s next, beliefs are being shared about what the afterlife looks like, and staying in touch with those that are no longer with us physically.”
Young says she hopes people feel the power of relationship at the Avenida de Altares event, and they see how death is not a severance of it. “Death is not an ending. This event is about reconnecting and rebuilding that bridge again with the departed, to reflect and feel that your ancestors and [the departed] are still here with you.”
Audience sizes for Avenida de Altares have quintupled since its early days, when the school hoped to get maybe 800 to 1,000 attendees, Jones says. “We’re now clearing 3,000.”
“We’ve grown from only celebrating within the walls of the Plaza to having multiple stages and performances areas down the street, involving local business and artists to display their work and altares for their loved ones for blocks down the road leading toward Highway 101.”
The production value has expanded as well, Jones says. “It used to be one stage with some relatively basic lighting, and we now have a main stage, three or four secondary stages and we color or add lights to almost every single surface, every single tree, the parking lots, even La Plazita Junior across the street.”
The amount of color and vibrancy that the Mexican Heritage Plaza continues to grow toward, and into, gets bigger, brighter and more beautiful every year, he says.
“We come together to remember [at La Plaza], but we actually end up creating more networks, more opportunities, and more moments,” Jones says. “I know people who met here, and are now married. And they decided to get married here because they came to our events and fell in love here.”
As Ochoa says, being at La Plaza events, “being in community, strengthens, rebuilds and creates roots, keeping us in touch with something we may otherwise lose touch with.”
Avenida de Altares takes place 5:30–10:30pm on Nov. 2 at the Mexican Heritage Plaza, 1700 Alum Rock Ave, San Jose.
