Today we’d like to introduce you to Lilia Rosas.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’m originally from the San Francisco Bay Area and I arrived in Austin to begin a PhD in history at UT Austin. I quickly felt isolated and disenchanted by academia so I started looking for local organizations where I could be of service.
I began working with Red Salmon Arts as a graduate student intern. I worked directly with raúlrsalinas, who was the original director of Red Salmon Arts. I briefly left the organization while working on my PhD. After his passing in 2008 I was invited back to serve as the administrator of the organization. In 2013 I transitioned to Executive Director.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
As a small grassroots BIPOC and queer led nonprofit, our struggles have included the hyper-gentrification that has devastated many organizations and businesses that are the heart and soul of Austin. We appreciate the people who continuously support us and the new people who seek us out.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Red Salmon Arts is a grassroots cultural arts organization, with a thirty-year history of working with the indigenous neighborhoods of Austin. RSA is dedicated to the development of emerging writers and the promotion of Chicana/o/x/Latina/o/x/Native American literature, providing outlets and mechanisms for cultural exchange, and sharing in the retrieval of a people’s cultural heritage with a commitment to social justice. Resistencia Books is the touchstone program of Red Salmon Arts, functioning as both a bookstore and community space where Austinites can gather for meetings, cultural arts events, festivals, and more.
Red Salmon Arts offers resources to Chicana/o/x/Latina/o/x and Native American communities living in working class neighborhoods of Austin to better understand the culture and arts of their families and ancestors. The founder of Red Salmon Arts, raúlrsalinas, was a world-renowned poet who developed his artistic technique through a life of hardship and experience, including time served in prison for non-violent crimes. Raúl was born in San Antonio, Texas and raised in Austin, Texas. From 1959 to 1972, Salinas was incarcerated on drug related charges. During this time, he became known for his prison poetry and work with other inmates regarding literature and art. He is best known for his role in the prisoner-rights movement and other various political movements, and fo his contributions to Chicano literature, including the foundational Chicano experience poem, “A Trip Through the Mind Jail.”His readings were dramatic and effective, helping young people who heard him understand the life circumstances of so many Mexican Americans in those days, and how poverty and racism still create challenges for Latina/o/xs.
Today we honor Raúl by maintaining our physical space and offering poetry & literature focused programming. We also strive to be an organization that is responsive to the changing community around us. This has led us to into new programming territory including the establishment of our Resistencia Community Garden, support of numerous other organizations in town, our Cine Resistencia film series, and the Cafe Librito children’s cuento time program.
What are your plans for the future?
We’re trying to find a more permanent home for our bookstore and community space after several moves in the last decade, from South First to East Cesar Chavez to the Montopolis Neighborhood. RSA is a historical and relevant site for Chicanx, Latinx, Indigenous communities of Austin but we have struggled due to being uprooted. We are growing our grassroots base and working towards more resilient avenues of funding in order to preserve who we are and to build towards the future. We are always looking for a broad range of support and we rely on donations from the Austin community to keep us going!
Contact Info:
- Website: resistenciabooks.com
- Instagram: @redsalmonarts
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/red-salmon-arts
- Youtube: youtube.com/@redsalmonarts
