Tia Chucha’s Cultural Center and Bookstore in Sylmar is gearing up for its 20th anniversary celebration with plans to expand to a new location.
After 12 years at its current location at 13197 Gladstone Ave., the center and bookstore will move down the street to 12677 Glenoaks Blvd. to expand its current program offerings in a larger space.
The nonprofit, which focuses on Mexican- and Indigenous-American literacy, ancestral knowledge and healing through the arts, has spent the majority of the last year offering completely virtual workshops and classes due to coronavirus restrictions. While the center typically serves community members in person with dance, parenting and cooking classes, Executive Director Michael Centeno said some of the virtual offerings were even more popular than they’d ever been.
“Once the racial justice protests started happening (last June), our bookstore took off during the pandemic online and it has been growing ever since,” Centeno said. “We’re doing better now than we had been doing before. So that has been a pretty positive spin during all this time with the pandemic and COVID.”In particular, the center has hosted a virtual monthly social justice book club, which has become one of its most popular offerings. When coronavirus restrictions are completely lifted, Centeno said the center intends to keep this event, as well as some of its seasonal programming, in hybrid models to keep attendance up and further promote the bookstore.
The increase in book sales, along with relief funding, allowed Tia Chucha’s to keep its six full-time and two part-time employees during the pandemic, prevented layoffs and revealed the need for a larger space, according to Centeno. The organization hopes to finish moving into the new venue in time for its 20th anniversary celebration in June.
“In general, the pandemic has been challenging. It took us some time to adapt but once we were able to, we just kept going, and that has really made an impact,” Centeno said. “We’re just looking forward to a time when we can open and be in person and keep serving the community.”
Tia Chucha’s Expands for Anniversary
