From Where We Started to Where We’re Going
From government housing in rural Colorado to the boardroom, Michael Archuleta on the fighting chance that shaped his idea of home.
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Home, In Their Own Words
What does home mean to you? Four voices from SVL's Advisory Board answer in their own words this Hispanic Heritage Month.
What Home Means to Me
For his father, home was Mexico. For his mother, home was wherever family gathered. For Francisco Jiménez, home became something he had to leave to find. A reflection from the author of The Circuit.
Where Home Really Is
Nancy Marmolejo spent her twenties moving from apartment to apartment. Her mother's house was the one constant, until the year she became her mother's caregiver, and the year after, when she had to let it go.
Two Flags, One Home
Two flags hung on his bedroom wall growing up, Mexican on one side, American on the other. Eddie García opens SVL's Hispanic Heritage Month series with a Sunday morning that never left him.
We Are the Economy Too: What $1.26 Billion Tells Us About Who Powers Cook County
A new University of Illinois Chicago study set out to measure the cost of fear. What it found: Latino families don't just support their own community, they help power the entire county's economy.
Why the Mexica Story Matters
Historical memory shapes more than our understanding of the past. In the final installment of his Raíces series, Salomón Quintero explains why he chose the Mexica as the subject of Flight of the Hummingbird, and why recovering Indigenous history matters to Latino communities today.
Entering the Mexica World: Flight of the Hummingbird
Salomón Quintero explores the language and art of his novel Flight of the Hummingbird, tracing a philosopher-artisan's journey and the Mexica poetry that meditates on beauty and mortality."
The Dream Comes True: 300 People, 46 Degrees, and Four Decades of Fighting Finally Break Ground
Gun-metal gray skies. Forty-six degrees. Three hundred people huddled together on an open lot in East San José. December 13, 1997. Eddie García takes us to the morning four decades of dreaming finally broke ground. Part 10 of Raíces — Our Story, Our Narrative.
9-9-99: The Day San José’s Mexican Community Finally Came Home
September 9, 1999. The Mexican Heritage Plaza opens its doors. The spirits of 220 years of presence, resilience, and perseverance gather on the balcony. Todos Juntos with the community. Eddie García takes us to the day they all came home. Part 11 of Raíces — Our Story, Our Narrative.
She Learned to Read People at a Flea Market. Now She's Teaching Leaders How to Listen.
Nancy Marmolejo spent decades helping leaders find their voice. Now she's teaching them to listen. Meet the newest SVL Executive Cultura Ambassador.
Jessica Ruvalcaba - Cultura Ambassador
We are excited to announce that Cultura Ambassador, Jessica Ruvalcaba, will be joining Samsung SDS America as their new senior marketing manager. Jessica has been with Cisco since 2010 where she started as an MBA intern.
Raíces — Our Story, Our Narrative
¡Viva El Mariachi! How a Festival in a Cramped Office Became the Dream’s First Victory
Five people. One office. 1988. That is where the Mexican Heritage Plaza began. Eddie García documents how the Mexican Heritage Corporation turned four decades of rejection into a $153,000 mariachi festival victory. Part 8 of Raíces — Our Story, Our Narrative.
Raíces — Our Story, Our Narrative
In a Word — Hope: The Mexican Heritage Plaza and the Legacy That Refuses to Be Renamed
“This cultural center will offer, in a word — hope." Twelve chapters of forgotten San José history later, Eddie García closes the Raíces series with the legacy that refuses to be renamed, and a 94-year-old Blanca Alvarado having the last word.
Raíces — Our Story, Our Narrative
24,342 Acres. By 1865 His Family Had 2,200. The Difference Was the Law.
Eddie García tells the story of Antonio Chaboya, San José's largest private landowner, and the 1851 law that stripped 90% of his land from him and his fellow Californio ranchers.
Raíces — Our Story, Our Narrative
New Almaden Mines: How Mexican Labor Built Silicon Valley and Fought Back
Eddie García takes us underground into the New Almaden Mines, where Mexican miners on Cinnabar Hill sparked what may be the earliest ethnic Mexican-organized labor movement in U.S. history.
Raíces — Our Story, Our Narrative
The Founding of El Pueblo de San José: A 22-Day Journey Into History
Eddie García reconstructs the 22-day journey that 66 Mexican settlers took from San Francisco to found El Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe in 1777.
Raíces — Our Story, Our Narrative
The Mexicans: How San José's Founders Were Written Out of Their Own City's History
Historian Eddie García examines how San José's Mexican founders were systematically erased from the city's own historical record and who finally told the truth.
Raíces — Our Story, Our Narrative
Raíces | Vol. 1, Part 1 — The Prologue
Eddie García traces Mexican Heritage Plaza's story from San José's founding in 1777 to a cultural landmark that almost never got built.