With support from the California Arts Council, Mi Gente CA will implement a multi-city, artist-led Public Community Event Series of seven free cultural festivals across San Diego, San Jose, and Santa Cruz, including MexiPino Fest, Hispanic/Latine Heritage Month programming, and community Block Parties. CAC funds will support artist fees, community partnerships, accessibility accommodations, youth arts programming, and production costs to deliver culturally rooted public arts events.
The project responds to limited access to culturally reflective public arts spaces for underrepresented communities and supports collaboration with local artists and community partners to co-create programming rooted in community needs. Each festival includes performances, storytelling, youth showcases, and participatory arts activities highlighting cultural traditions and shared histories.
This work expands access to public cultural spaces, increases artist visibility, and strengthens community connection through cross-cultural arts experiences across California.
Mi Gente CA’s core programs center on culturally rooted arts experiences that build community, support artists, and expand access to the arts for underrepresented communities across California.
Our festivals include culturally specific and identity-centered gatherings such as the MexiPino Festival, which celebrates the shared and distinct histories of Mexican and Filipino communities. We have also produced AfroLatine and Hispanic/Latine Heritage Month festivals, alongside year-round festival programming that prioritizes underrepresented creatives. While cultural celebrations are an important part of our work—supporting storytelling, history-sharing, and deeper understanding across cultures—our festivals also provide ongoing opportunities for artists to showcase their work outside of traditional heritage observances.
Our Brown Babes programming is a community-building initiative grounded in connection, mentorship, and the communal act of breaking bread. These gatherings intentionally bring people together over shared meals to foster authentic relationship-building among creatives, particularly women and nonbinary people of color. This space centers belonging, dialogue, and mutual support as essential components of creative and personal sustainability.
In addition to these core programs, Mi Gente CA also produces workshops, gallery exhibitions, dance socials, and panel discussions. These are established program areas that extend our mission by creating additional spaces for community engagement with cultural identity, creative practice, and cross-cultural dialogue, while supporting both emerging and established artists.
Across all programming, Mi Gente CA prioritizes access to the arts by offering low-cost or free experiences, compensating artists for their labor, and intentionally creating inclusive, multigenerational spaces. Our work ensures that cultural programming is both reflective of and accessible to the communities we serve.
Together, these programs strengthen local creative ecosystems, advance cultural equity, and foster deeper understanding, connection, and shared histories across communities.