The Wizards is proud to partner with the APO Cultural Center, a historic venue with over 60 years of fostering arts and social change in the Pilsen community of Chicago.

APO was founded in 1962 by workers and residents of Chicago’s Latino communities to defend and make known to Latinos the rights of workers in the U.S. The basic goals of APO were to promote the implementation of fair labor practices, diminish the high incidence of discrimination against Latino workers, and the struggle for just wages and better working conditions. APO’s outreach included striving for the improvement and expansion of legal services and employment agencies for Latinos; end abuse of workers and their families by private and public agencies; educate Latinos to the importance of knowing about collective bargaining contracts; and developing communication and cooperation among workers and residents of Chicago’s Latino communities.

Why APO Cultural Center matters?

  • In 1968, APO became based out of the Mexican American community of Pilsen. Though APO did not consider itself exclusively a Mexican or Pilsen organization, it became a widely respected community organization. For years, APO was a base for labor organizing and successfully organized campaigns to secure better working conditions for Latinos in varied spaces including CTA (1972), St. Luke’s Hospital (1976), A & P (1977), Greyhound (1980), Chicago Department of Streets & Sanitation (1980), and Jewel (1980), among others. 

    Quickly, APO became a site not only for community activism and organizing but also for the arts and culture that have become intrinsic to the Pilsen neighborhood. Late artist and activist Carlos Cortez is largely associated with APO. Cortez’s printmaking explored the intersection of Mexican American culture and social issues such as labor rights and state violence reflect APO’s position in the community as a hub for progressive arts and culture. Increasingly since the 1980s, APO has been a site of artistic and cultural production that has fostered the work of local Mexican American artists like muralist Hector Duarte, and Sal Vega. For years, APO was the venue for dozens of arts exhibitions, performances and screenings as well as the place where artists worked and created. 

    Now, established as the APO Cultural Center, APO continues to be a site of community arts and cultural production. Currently, APO is home to the artist collective Casa de la Cultura Carlos Cortez Mestizarte and is home to the J-Def Peace Project, an arts outreach organization dedicated to the memory of local late teen hip-hop artist Jeff Abbey Maldonado, Jr. who was lost to gang violence. The J-Def Peace Project uses art to promote everything from conflict resolution to neighborhood beautification and restoration.

    The APO Cultural Center continues to operate out of its home Pilsen home since 1968, a historic building built in 1883 as a Czech community center. The APO Cultural Center has successfully retained possession of the building it’s called home for over 50 years amidst intense gentrification in Pilsen that has dispossessed other sites of cultural and community significance like Casa Atlan, a former community center turned into condominiums. With aspirations to be an accessible and premiere cultural center for the 21st century, APO continues to develop programming like it’s Raquel Guerrero Theater and Social Residency and seeks support to rehabilitate and upgrade its 140 year-old building. To support the APO Cultural Center, contact APO staff at apoculturalcenter@gmail.com.

Production Partners

Concrete
Content

Concrete Content is an art, performance, and media incubator and producing entity founded by Ricardo Gamboa, Sean James William Paris and Katrina Dion. Concrete Content is dedicated to creating work that is accessible and entertaining while providing audiences with radical imagination and perspectives and pushing aesthetic and cultural boundaries.

Gertie

Gertie is an organization aiming to build a community of young professionals in Chicago who are ready to engage with the city and each other in new ways. Gertie believes spending time around creativity and creatives can make a difference in people’s lives. Gertie aims to make arts and culture accessible through membership to the organization that provides newsletters, guidebooks and programming for members in partnership with Chicago’s most exciting institutions, artists and cultural movers and shakers.

Chicago Latino Theater Alliance

The Chicago Latino Theater Alliance (CLATA) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit Arts & Cultural organization, committed to foster and showcase thought provoking Latino theater artists, primarily in Chicago, to preserve cultural heritage, inspire a cross-cultural audience, create more equitable representation on stages and access to funding for Latinos in theater, and increase youth/emerging artists access to the industry and job opportunities.

Destinos

The pillar program of the Chicago Latino Theater Alliance (CLATA) is the annual Destinos: Chicago International Latino Theater festival. Destinos showcases Latino theater artists from Chicago, across the U.S. and Latin America, to present engaging and thought provoking stories that transcend boundaries, amplify Latino voices, and diversify Chicago stages to encourage cross-cultural conversation. The festival presents full theater productions of Latino stories as told by Latino theater artists, student matinees, panels and post show talk-backs with artists.

National Museum
of Mexican Art

In 1982, Carlos Tortolero organized a group of fellow educators and founded the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, which opened its doors in 1987. The goal was to establish an arts and cultural organization committed to accessibility, education and social justice. The museum also provided a positive influence for the local Mexican community, especially since many other art institutions did not address Mexican art. Over the years, the institution has grown, its audience has broadened, and its reach now extends across the United States and beyond.