We’re thrilled to be working with grassroots organizers from Regeneración in building a Center for Cultural Organizing and heritage-based entrepreneurship to serve neighborhoods along the corridor of South 12th Avenue from 44th Street to Drexel Road (colloquially known as “La Doce”) in Tucson. In 2023, we purchased a property, 4009 S. 12th Avenue, to house the Center, and we are now starting the first of a three-phase building renovation.
The Center for Cultural Organizing will be a hub and co-workspace for neighborhood residents, an event center to host community gatherings, and a pop-up space for heritage-based artists to showcase and sell their work. We define “cultural organizing” as using art, culture, and folklife practices to connect and uplift communities and recognize residents as agents in shifting and healing harmful legacies and policies.
The project, supported in part by the City of Tucson’s ARPA Community Investment program, recognizes that the largely Indigenous, Latino, and immigrant neighborhoods of La Doce have faced a legacy of disinvestment, despite gaining recent attention as a celebrated “food corridor” for several popular Mexican restaurants. Committed to restoring regenerative wealth and power to the community, SFA and organizers will gift the property after three years to a newly formed La Doce Community Land Trust (CLT) to be developed and run by local community leaders. SFA will maintain a role as a tenant in partnership with the CLT.
The endeavor builds on more than a decade of community and cultural organizing by Regeneración (formerly Tierra Y Libertad Organization) and more recently, the 2018 La Doce Barrio Foodways Project, a community-led research project—in partnership with the City of Tucson, Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona, and the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona—that documented heritage foodways practices, illuminated workable models for cultural and economic sustainability, and revealed a need for greater support of community governance.
For the past six years, Regeneración has engaged in participatory action research grounded in folklife and cultural organizing methodologies to map local assets, identify development tax incentives, and document occupational folklife practices to better understand existing wealth and resources and how to leverage current planning zones for community sustainability. This work has been done in partnership with the Southwest Folklife Alliance, with funding from the Vitalyst Foundation, Andrew Mellon Foundation, Kresge Foundation, and PRO Neighborhoods.
“This effort marks a pivotal moment for the southside community of Tucson,” said Nelda Ruiz, SFA Program Manager in Cultural Organizing and a founding organizer of Regeneración. “Through the creation of the Center for Cultural Organizing, we affirm the knowledge and dignity of our residents by utilizing folklife as a tool for building community power and trust. This initiative is a testament to the power of grassroots leadership and research conducted by and for the people. Together with the Southwest Folklife Alliance, we are reclaiming our narrative and fostering regenerative wealth and autonomy in the South 12th/La Doce neighborhoods.”
SFA Executive Director Leia Maahs said the endeavor builds on SFA’s legacy of supporting and recognizing the inherent contributions of artists and workers to the community. “At SFA, we have long supported food producers, traditional artists, and other workers whose labor, while it often happens hidden in plain view, contributes great beauty and dignity to our communities. This partnership furthers that tradition. Viewing folklife as a tool for liberation, we made an intentional choice to leverage resources from a one-time unrestricted gift provided to SFA by McKenzie Scott (in her 2021 gift economy campaign) to purchase a property that would support the communities on Tucson’s southside in continuing traditions of heritage-based entrepreneurship and community-led efforts for equity,” Maahs said.
SFA and Nomad Design Studio are now accepting bids to remodel the old Louis’ Market.
Download bid materials