Museum of Latin American Art

Funding provided by Long Beach Gives 2024 would primarily support the creation of the community altar during MOLAA's Day of the Dead Festival, to be celebrated on Sunday, October 27, 2024. The community altar honoring the Day of the Dead is an integral part of the cultural program attached to this event, as it is developed in collaboration with an artist who will also work with community members to build the altar. Through MOLAA's Day of the Dead Festival, the Museum continues to honor tradition and offer multiple educational opportunities for our audiences to deepen their understanding and appreciation for this cultural event and how the arts impact this annual celebration. The community altar as part of the Day of the Dead programming is one of the ways our audiences can explore the many diverse narratives and voices of MOLAA's exhibitions, programs, and participate in engaging and comprehensive hands-on workshops.

MOLAA's APRENDE (LEARN) program is the Museum's core arts education program and was developed to increase access to high-quality and culturally relevant arts curriculum and experiences in the region's schools and communities. APRENDE seeks to reach the community's economically and socially disadvantaged youth and residents by providing low-cost or free onsite exhibition tours; online virtual tours; art workshops; lectures and panel discussions; educator training sessions and downloadable curriculum resources; an annual Bilingual Summer Arts & Culture Camp; and other interactive learning experiences. Programming also includes three major annual Family Festivals; the Afro-Latinx Festival, the Asian Pacific Islander Series, and the Day of the Dead Festival. APRENDE moves beyond art appreciation and craft activities to address the creative process through critical thinking; performing, visual, and language arts; social sciences; and cultural, visual, and written literacy. In addition to strengthening children's skills and capacities, these programs facilitate the exploration of diverse cultures and communities and foster cross-cultural understanding and appreciation.

Together we introduce new ideas, promote inclusion, and reinforce the value of cross-cultural dialogue. APRENDE allows us to bridge a physical gap with our audiences/ community and keep providing you with valuable content to support the arts and you during this time. Thank you for thinking of MOLAA on the fourth annual Long Beach Gives Day as we find new and innovative ways to bring art to our communities when they need it the most!

For more information, please visit molaa.org.

We look forward to continue celebrating more than 25 years of service to the Long Beach Community.

Testimonials

March 25, 2022

Dear Museum of Latin American Art Education Staff,
I just want to take a moment to thank you for going out of your way to provide a wonderful tour experience for our 6th grade students. You always do an outstanding job, but now with the constraints of CoVid, we appreciate your efforts even more.

My tour guide was Yolanda. She was quite possibly the best museum tour guide I have experienced anywhere. (For a bit of history, I started my teaching career with 10 years of museum education - LACMA, the Muni, and The Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena where I trained museum educators. I have also been taking children on art museum field trips for the past 25 years. I've experienced many tour guides.) Yolanda was warm, personable, understanding of the age, straightforward, and knowledgeable. She kept control of the group while also giving them some time to look closer on their own. I know that I left the tour believing that I know much more about Judy Baca than I knew before. Yolanda is a keeper; please hold on to her!
The butterfly project was appropriate and doable while also being challenging. I attended the project with the second group. Apparently, the instructional kinks were worked out during the first group. There are some nuances to the project that might be improved upon, but those children who like an engineering challenge stepped up and solved the problems for their tables. So, I'm thinking that it was a good learning experience for all. I look forward to coming again in future years and truly appreciate your efforts in accommodating our large number of students.

Sincerely,
Christy Armstrong
K-2 Art specialist
6th grade ceramics