Culver City’s celebration of Hispanic Heritage at the Wende Museum on Saturday, September 27, 2025 was a unique event that focused on the history of Culver City, and the Chicano art, music and culture that is second nature to southern California.
The evening started with a great set of music by DJ Ernesto Colín, who you might have heard on local radio station KXLU from Loyola Marymount, where he is a professor of educational anthroplogy. The crowd also enjoyed fantastic and fun dancing by Grupo Flor de Aztlán; student performers from Culver City Unified School District showcasing regional Mexican dances.
The Culver City Historical Society was on hand, represented by Historian Hope Parrish and volunteer Jack Galanty. They had a large display of articles and photos on Culver City’s Hispanic roots touching on the Lugos, the Cerras and the Machado families back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
In the Glorya Kaufman Community Center, Melissa Richardson Banks hosted a series of short films on Chicano art, and introduced a panel of artists speaking about their work. As the Curator of the Cheech Museum in Riverside, the nation’s largest collection of Chicano artworks, Banks had some very deep knowledge and long term relationships to highlight.
Award winning cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz moderated the panel discussion with painter Margaret Garcia, photographer Luis Garza, and painter Francisco Palomares. Each of them had wisdom to offer about art and it’s use in creating connection. Garza also spoke from the perspective of coming back to his own work, years later, and finding history in the frames.
There were hands-on art activities in the classroom upstairs, and more art on display and for sale in garden.
It was an evening that invited people to learn more about local culture that they might not know, and to relish and savor culture that often does not get the recognition that it deserves.
Judith Martin-Straw
Photo – dancers from Grupo Flor de Aztlán
