A LETTER TO THE GUADALUPE CULTURAL CENTER FROM THE WOMEN OF MALCS

August 21, 2006

Juan Aguilera, Chair
Board of Directors
Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center
1300 Guadalupe Street
San Antonio, TX 78207

Dear Mr. Aguilera and Board
of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center:

The San Antonio chapter of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS), an organization comprised of women form the San Antonio community who care about what happens in our city, our state, our nation and our world, present to the Board of The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center and to interested parties, our concern over the recent termination of employment of over 10 women from the Guadalupe Center. MALCS is a national association comprised of Chicanas, Latinas and Native American women who advocate and support women’s issues and concerns at all levels, from grassroots community venues to academic scholarly ones.

As long-time supporters of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, we are dismayed at the lack of procedural and civil processes by the women were treated. Because we care deeply about what happens to women at their places of work and because we also care deeply about the arts and culture of our city and the best that the Guadalupe represents for Chicanas, we ask the Board to take the following actions:

*To insure that all board actions reflect the procedures under which the GCAC operates, namely the bylaws of the organization.

*Offer an accounting of how and why the women employees were terminated and under what conditions they had to work.

*Evaluate the recently hired director of the Center taking into account all his dealings with mujeres at the institution and his treatment of same.

We respectfully submit this request and expect that these issues will be discussed at the next board meeting. We ask that the board then respond to our request in writing and with an explanation of what has transpired to bring the Center to such a predicament as well as what steps have been taken to resolve it. We are, of course, pleased to attend a Board meeting to discuss our concerns and are prepared to do so.

Sincerely,

MALCS-SA
Mujeres Activas en Letras Social in San Antonio

Photocredit: J. Michael Walker, La Virgen de Guadalupe. He's married to a Tarahumara woman.