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Plans to build a new Latin cultural arts center are moving forward after the Houston City Council approved the initiative lead by a nonprofit called Advocates of a Latino Museum of Cultural and Visual Arts & Archive Complex in Houston, Harris County (ALMAAHH).
District H Council Member Karla Cisneros was happy to see other members back the project.
"I am pleased to welcome and support ALMAAHH – a new nonprofit organization with a big goal of leading the effort to build a world class, state-of-the-art cultural arts center that celebrates the richness and diversity of Houston's Latinidad," Cisneros wrote in a post on her Facebook page.
Cisneros said the city council unanimously approved a $40,000 matching grant program she established through the Houston Arts Alliance to be used as "seed money" to help launch the project.
"The goal is not to replace smaller Latino Arts organizations or to compete with them for funding, this is something new," Cisneros said during a recorded council meeting that was uploaded to YouTube. "The goal is to create something new, something that we don't have now, and something that we need, something Houston needs."
District I Council Member Robert Gallegos called the seed funding an "important step" toward progressing the plan to build a performing arts and museum campus that celebrates the Latin community.
"With 48% of the population Hispanic, it's time," Gallegos said in the YouTube video. "I look forward to committing funds in the upcoming years to help support and advance ALMAAHH's work."
During the recorded meeting, Cisneros said the "rich diversity" of the people who make up Houston and give the city its identity is also reflected in the "very diverse Hispanic population."
She believes ALMAAHH's efforts to build a facility to honor the city's Latin culture will be successful, despite previous failed attempts from different organizations.
According to ALMAAHH's website, the nonprofit's goal is to have a museum that "will educate the community through collecting, preserving, hosting, interpreting and incubating the diverse arts and culture of Latinos in the United States."