Juan Aguilera, the former Board Chair of the Guadalupe Cultural Center , should apologize to Dee Murff and all the women of the Guadalupe who were summarily fired because of Bret Ruiz, the former and very-flawed director of the Guadalupe. Murff, the most outspoken of the group and surely the one with the most red-haired attitude - filed a lawsuit against the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center (GCAC) charging sexual discrimination during Ruiz's tenure. The rumors are that the Guadalupe wants to settle the case before the arrival of the new executive director, Patty Ortiz. Let's be clear: This lawsuit was a last-resort attempt to get the community to pay attention to the problems at the GCAC. Sometimes an organization, like an individual, like a nation, has to face its errors. Confronting guilt can be healing for everyone concerned. We all make mistakes, and Aguilera needs to man-up. Bret Ruiz was the man hired to be Executive Director in July of 2005 , despite a phone call fro...

I've taken the liberty of editing the complete statement because of length, but I'm impressed with Dee's courage and coraje. May you too fight back, it's the only way. This lawsuit represents more than the damages/injuries inflicted upon me . What I want people to remember is that there are 12 women and 2 men who were also displaced. The Chairman of the Board, Vice Chairman, and the rest of the Board failed to act responsibly; choosing instead to justify the illegal behavior of the President of the organization. The Board of Directors deliberately retaliated against me instead of protecting me and my civil rights. In fact my complaints were ignored because I am brown and I am a woman. The tax payers and citizens who have provided support to the GCAC for over 25 years have also been robbed of classes, performances and events that enrich our community and preserve our Chicano/a culture. The loss during this period is immeasurable. The gr...

Well, it's official. Tragic. And necessary. The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, once a history-making cultura l fuerza and fountain of all things Chican@, is getting sued by one brown woman - and is about to make history again. On Tuesday, November 27th, 2007, at 10 am, Amy Kastely, lawyer with de la Riva & Associates who is representing the plaintiff, Dee (Dolores) Zapata Murff, will file a lawsuit in Federal District Court in San Antonio, Texas, alleging sexual discrimination. Specifically, the charges include: Sexual Harrassment; Harrassment based on race, color and national origin (the plaintiff called herself a Chicana ); Retaliation; Constructive Discharge, and Negligent Supervision. In the lawsuit, Dee Zapata Murff, the GCAC's former Public Relations and Marketing Manager, alleges that R. Bret Ruiz, who was hired by Juan F. Aguilera, the Center's Board Chairman in the summer of 2006, discriminated against her as the Guadalupe Cultural Center Board failed to...

From one of the founders of the Guadalupe: I remember when we first moved into the Guadalupe...it was being used as a flea market.....on the southside (Guadalupe Street) there was a door and a long room all painted red...it was used as an arcade........ One guy from the neighborhood came to see me... said he was a commercial painter.......said he had no money for diapers for his child......... from his back pocket he pulled out some house paint brushes (4 inch) and said look hold on to these.... give me $15 and I'll come buy them back ......I looked at the brushes and I looked at him....the brushes were used but they were well taken cared of......at the time there was some graffitti on the walls...not awhole bunch...and I told him.......I got a gallon of paint......go cover that graffiti and I'll give you fifty....... Another time a guitar player came and we went throught the same thing.......at this time we were already in the Progresso building also....so it had to be the s...

I heard tonight from very reliable sources that tomorrow, April 4th, the city's newspaper, the San Antonio Express-News,will report that the Guadalupe's Cultural Center MBA-President, R. Bret Ruiz, is resigning, effective April 18th of this year. The SAEN will report the party line, that he's moving on to better things, that they accepted his resignation...and other b,,,..,,t. Here's what happened. The Guadalupe has been in serious debt for a long time, thanks to the corporate ambitions of past directors, most notably Maria Elena Torralba-Alonso, and the corporate rubber-stamp board she selected. Some people say the Guadalupe is in hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, and I'm being careful. So long story short: The Board hasn't had a clue for a long time, and they're responsible for getting the Guadalupe into this mess of debt, and for the mass firings of women, most notably la Mary Jessie Garza, who was interim director. Instead they hired a dir...