We are largely a mixed-race people due to the various colonial histories of our countries and encounters between Europeans, indigenous people, and Africans. Our cultural heritage and who we are today is a result of an unprecedented history of transcontinental migration, when after 1492, 60 million Europeans, 11 million Africans, and 5 million Asians arrived in the Americas to inhabit a land that once belonged to what was once the Aztec Empire, now non-existent.
Latinos come from regions of the world that span two continents: North America (including Central America and the Caribbean) and South America. This includes 19 sovereign nations and one non-independent territory, Puerto Rico. Most people from these regions speak Spanish or Portuguese, although French, English, Dutch, and Kreyol are also spoken in parts of the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.
Our Programs
Would you like to support the mission of Rhode Island Latino Arts? Please consider making a donation. Your contributions will help us maintain this website — the only one of its kind in Rhode Island that provides the most comprehensive free cultural and educational information that features Latinos in the arts.
WE VALUE ALL ARTISTS: We believe every artist deserves respect for their work and as much as possible, should receive payment just as any laborer does.
OUR PLEDGE: In everything that we create and produce we will surround ourselves with a team that is 50 percent women and 85 percent of Latinx heritage. We challenge anyone out there, especially anyone who is in a position of power, to stand with us in solidarity and ensure that we embrace and lift up our community's diverse voices not just in our industry, but in all industries.
RILA is a statewide organization based in Providence and Central Falls, and acknowledge that we are on the traditional homelands of the Narragansett and Wampanoag peoples, the original stewards of the territory now called Rhode Island. We honor their ancestors, we offer our respect to the Elders past, present, and future, and recognize their continued existence and contributions to our society.
In this moment of social unrest and change, in Rhode Island and throughout the country, our success as a community will be determined by our ability to live, work, and communicate with one another. Today and always, we urge everyone to choose inclusion.
We do not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, class, color, sexuality, gender, gender expression, religion, age, nationality, disability, marital status, or military status, in any of our activities or operations. We value diversity. We are committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all visitors, members of our staff, artists-in-residence, contracted artists and vendors.
We acknowledge our areas of privilege and how they interact and potentially impact our audiences and oppressed identities. We recognize the power dynamic that is evident by virtue of the art that is created by and sponsored by RILA and the arts participant. While we do not put this responsibility on our audiences or visitors to La Galería, we do welcome and encourage your feedback if you have ever been discriminated against or experienced micro-aggressions by a board member, our staff, or any artists representing RILA.
We acknowledge our areas of privilege and how they interact and potentially impact our audiences and oppressed identities. We recognize the power dynamic that is evident by virtue of the art that is created by and sponsored by RILA and the arts participant. While we do not put this responsibility on our audiences or visitors to La Galería, we do welcome and encourage your feedback if you have ever been discriminated against or experienced micro-aggressions by a board member, our staff, or any artists representing RILA.
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RILA is proud to be a recipient of the
2019 Guidestar Platinum Seal of Transparency.
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