The Latino Professionals Association Celebrates Yo Soy: Over 40 Years of Latin Arts
Oscar Mireles, founder of LOUD — Latinos Organizing for Understanding and Development — cut his teeth on the Latino arts scene in Milwaukee during the 1980s
by Jonathan Gramling
Until recently, Oscar Mireles had been primarily known in the Madison area as the executive director of Omega School, where he helped people, especially youth, get their second chance by getting their GED or HSED. He did that for 30 years, beginning in 1994 and retiring last year.
And last year, Mireles transitioned to a new role in the community as the founder of LOUD, Latinos Organizing for Understanding and Development. LOUD produces several Latin-oriented arts performances or exhibits throughout the year.
Mireles isn’t a “johnny come lately” to the Latin Arts scene. His involvement predates his moving to Madison in 1994.
“Back in the early 1980s, I was able to set up what became Latino Arts in Milwaukee,” Mireles said. “We had a chance to host the San Francisco Mime Troupe. We had them come and perform at our place. We worked with Theatre Esperanza out of the Mission District in San Francisco. They came for a couple of years. And then we worked with the Mexican Museum in San Francisco and had an exhibit. So we were presenting organizations. We brought in artists.”
Mireles stated that he always had ideas and was always willing to do the work. One other thing that has led to his success is his desire to learn from other people’s art efforts. While he often atgtended conferences and workshops as part of his day job, Mireles would also take side trips.
“When I went to San Antonio, I went to the Guadalupe Arts Cultural Center,” Mireles said. “They had taken over a theater. They had an art gallery. I went there and introduced myself. I said we were thinking about getting a building and if they had it to do over again, what would they do. They said there were two things. First have flexible space and have enough storage. And then I went to the Mexican Museum in San Francisco and went to El Museo del Barrio in New York City. And I went to the Chicago Mexican Fine Arts Center. So part of it was seeing what other people were doing. People were very gracious. I didn’t know a lot about the arts. And so in Milwaukee, we were able to eventually create a portable art gallery. I was just at the new Textile Art Center on Park Street. They use the exact kind of movable walls that we had. It’s almost like they copied what we had 40 years earlier.”
When Latino Arts got going, they had a broad spectrum of the types of events that they would host in order to keep the money flowing, especially when they were first starting out.
“We did an anthology, I Didn’t Know There Were Latinos in Wisconsin,’” Mireles said. “We had a speaker series. We had Cesar Chavez, Tito Puente and Federico Peña who was the mayor of Denver at the time. We had lectors. We had musicians. There was a group called Los Folkloristas. We developed a kind of formula. Work collaboratively with other organizations, whether it is Chicago, Minneapolis or Madison, so that we could create tours. In that way, we lessened the amount that everyone had to pay. Another lesson we learned is that there is a lot out there, but it isn’t here. We had to bring in artists because there weren’t as many hone-grown artists.”
In terms of attracting people to the shows and exhibits that were held at Latino Arts, they were very political and strategic.
“At the time, we had a lot of Latinos who had moved away from human services jobs to corporate jobs,” Mireles said. “And then they would also move out of the city because they were making more money. The arts were a way to reach those people. I had a group — for no better word — middle class Latinos who were interested in keeping parts of their culture and they would come to our events. Then we had another group of progressive kind of whites and they would come to whatever event I had. Then we had the local community who lived around the community center who would come to events. We were able to appeal to different audiences who were looking for something different to get out of the experience.”
Mireles also learned the value of networking in attracting the support that was needed to sustain Latino Arts.
“John Norquist appointed me to the initial Milwaukee Arts Board after Henry Meier left,” Mireles said. “They didn’t have an arts board before that. I was also on the board of the Milwaukee Repertory Theater. At that time, John Dillon, the artistic director and the company were pioneering color-blind casting. Now that has sort of changed the value and how people were interpreting lines too. That was something new when I was on the board. And then they had converted an old electrical power building into a theater. I was there at the time. I was also on the board of Arts Midwest, which was the six-state regional arts organization. I served on the board for six years. And so I learned back then that it’s not only what you do, it’s the connections and the people that you know and working and meeting arts patrons who will support what you do. Some people see board service as a lot of work, which it is. But it is also opening up a door to new people who want to support what you have in mind.”