La Peña is a vibrant non-profit community cultural center with a global vision that has promoted social justice, arts participation, and intercultural understanding since 1975. As an internationally recognized gathering place, we support a multitude of cultural traditions, progressive movements, and keep alive peoples’ cultures through community events, performances and classes rooted in Latin American traditions and beyond. A check of our calendar on any given day might reveal international or local performances, adult and children’s classes, community events, social justice organizing, and much more. La Peña was started by a group of Latinos/as and North Americans as a response to the military coup in Chile that overthrew the democratically elected socialist government of Dr. Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973. Today, our focus is on supporting new 21st century leaders in arts activism in one of the most racially and ethnically diverse metropolitan areas in the U.S.