Since the Guadalupe Cultural Center's new presidente arrived, R. Bret Ruiz , last summer in San Antonio, ten women have resigned, been fired, or terminated in some way. The Guadalupe Center, once the proud and mighty cultural leader of Mexican-American and Chicana/o art in the country, has no artistic directors left - except for dance. The Center is in serious debt - the rumors are that it could be as much as 1.2 million dollars in the hole, and from my records, this figure seems plausible. Ruiz has inflated his resume ; he has hired Anglo staff to replace the browns, and he has no track record for raising funds, based on the 990s I reviewed from his past employer, the Anita N. Martinez Ballet Folklorico in Dallas, and from an interview I did with Mauricio Navarro, who was the ANM Board Chairman when Ruiz was hired. A number of the women who left the Guadalupe have stated publicly and privately that Ruiz made disparaging remarks to them, and about the neighborhood, calling the ...

R. Bret Ruiz submitted two resumes to the Guadalupe Cultural Center, and this is the earlier version. According to Claire Actander at Northwestern University, Ruiz received his M.A. in Art History in 1986 - four years later than what he states here, a significant discrepancy. I suspect that Ruiz back-dated his resume attempting to show a curatorial record he doesn't seem to have, based on telephone calls I made to his past employers. Artistic experience in a discipline is critical to the top job of a cultural center like the Guadalupe. http://www.zwire.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=16714402&BRD=2318&PAG=461&dept_id=484045&rfi=8