(inspirational music)
Roberto Maestas said,
We took this over in your name for the yet unborn and future generations.
This is your home and everyone is welcome.
(funky music)
[Enrique Cerna] October 1972.
Seattle is dealing with fallout from the Boeing bust
protest against the Vietnam War and demands
for equity and opportunity from communities of color.
[Roberto Maestas] What it meant, I think, to a Chicano community was ...
[Enrique Cerna] At the time Roberto Maestas
is leading an English as a second language program
that serves as a focal point for a growing Chicano community.
[Roberto Maestas] It developed into a program that addressed itself
to grassroots people.
[Enrique Cerna] but then it was defunded.
(gavel slams down)
Efforts to get the city to save the program
and to provide a place for it to exist, go nowhere.
Maestas and other Chicano activists decide to take action.
They set their sights on the vacant rundown Beacon Hill School.
On October 11th, they show up saying they want to take a look inside.
[Estela Ortega] All of these people started coming up the sidewalk and the maintenance
person saw that and he turned to Roberto and gave him the key
and said, When you're done, lock up.
And of course, we were never done.
The occupation lasts three months.
And they did it in a peaceful way
without violence.
I think the thing that makes it so successful
is that the community came and supported them.
[Enrique Cerna] A deal is finally reached.
The building is leased to the activists for $1 a year.
El Centro de la Raza, a center for people of all races,
is born. The real work begins.
Now we have this building.
Now we have this opportunity.
How are we going to move this forward?
[Enrique Cerna] El Centro's leadership set out to implement Dr.
Martin Luther King's philosophy of building a beloved community
that stands for justice, opposes hate, aids those in need,
and helps the community help themselves to succeed and thrive.
[Roxana Amaral] It started off with education.
Right, then it started off with finding resources for food
and other things that our community needed.
[Enrique Cerna] Child care, preschool and youth programs are created
along with efforts to aid families, seniors, immigrants and the unhoused.
Yeah, I can put your motion on the time we talk about it.
Board chair Roxanna Amaral knows
firsthand how El Centro can change lives.
When her family came to Seattle from Mexico.
It was El Centro that helped them find their way in a new city and country.
It's been an honor to not only be a recipient
and also receive the care that we received as immigrant children
and then being able to build our skills
and set our foundation to then help others thrive.
[Enrique Cerna] As years became decades, El Centro
stayed true to building a beloved community.
[Tim Otani] This is more of a commitment to a way of life, a calling.
[Enrique Cerna] That commitment and calling did not go unnoticed.
El Centro is advocacy for social justice and economic
opportunity, made it a player in political circles.
There was an audience there they could no longer ignore.
And when people came together and spoke out together
and voted together, it gets noticed.
[Enrique Cerna] You also get noticed when you take on a $45
million capital project that creates
Plaza Roberto Maestas, with affordable housing,
retail, office, event, and early childhood development space.
[Tim Otani] I think it took their respect level up in some sectors
in the nonprofit community and people sat back and said, Oh,
look at that.
(emotional music)
[Enrique Cerna] Today, El Centro de la Raza
provides 43 programs and services.
This year, it will serve more than 22,000 people
[Estela Ortega] jobs, health care, education,
the housing that those are basic human rights.
[Enrique Cerna] Amidst the pandemic, racial reckoning
and uncertain times, El Centro is planning for the future.
It is developing projects to meet the growing need
for low income housing, child care and other services.
In Seattle's Columbia City neighborhood.
And it's expanding in federal way and South King County,
where Latinos now make up 56% of the population.
El Centro just has demonstrated year after year, decade after decade,
that they're in for the long haul
and they're committed.
It is amazing that El Centro has lasted 50 years
and now we're celebrating our 50th anniversary and it just seems so natural
that we'll be here for generations and generations to come.
- Vive centro de la Rosa.