Advocates of a Latino Museum of Cultural and Visual Arts & Archive Complex in Houston, Harris County (ALMAAHH), an organization dedicated to building a Latino art and culture museum in the city, has appointed Carlos Duarte as its inaugural president.
Carlos Duarte. Image courtesy of ALMAAHH.
Mr. Duarte is a prominent local Hispanic leader who has most recently served as the Chief Development Officer of Mi Familia Vota (MFV), a national nonpartisan Latino civic engagement organization. In total he spent 12 years at the organization, four and a half of which in his most recent role, and nearly eight of which as the Texas State Director. During his time at the organization, he expanded MFV to a number of cities and spearheaded campaigns and mobilization efforts related to healthcare, education, immigration, environmental justice, and workers’ rights. Notably, Mr. Duarte established the MFV Development Department and initiated a funding strategy that quadrupled the organization’s annual budget.
In a press release, Geraldina Interiano Wise, ALMAAHH’s Board Chair, remarked, “Having Carlos as our inaugural president gives our board and constituents confidence that his understanding of Latino culture and engagement experience will be strong assets to advance ALMAAHH’s mission. Carlos is a forward-thinking leader with an exceptional record of mobilizing communities and stakeholders. He is a social innovator who shares our vision that supporting and highlighting Latino arts and culture can inspire, educate, and empower our communities.”
Along with his work at MFV, Mr. Duarte has over 30 years of experience in nonprofits. He is also currently a Ph.D. candidate in Social and Cultural Anthropology at Arizona State University, and holds an MA in Social and Industrial Psychology from Escuela libre de psicología and a BA in Philosophy from the Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua.
Mr. Duarte said of his new position, “I am thrilled to work with ALMAAHH and advance its vision that Latinos must play a vital role in shaping the cultural character of a city where they are almost half the population. ALMAAHH is well poised to become the best vehicle for building community by systematically creating collective experiences that inspire unity, awareness, creativity, and social ingenuity. The arts, from visuals to music or theater, have been a force of human enrichment and change throughout history, and ALMAAHH understands that Latinos have an unmatched wealth of international cultural heritage to inspire creativity and change.”
While ALMAAHH was established in 2021, this year the organization has made substantial steps toward supporting Latino arts in Houston. In the spring, ALMAAHH hosted its inaugural juried exhibition and symposium on the state of Latinx visual art. During the summer, the organization partnered with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston to launch an open call for Latinx artists in support of the museum’s temporary exhibition Dream with Alebrijes, which commissioned six artists to create sculptures. Around the same time, ALMAAHH partnered with Casa Cultural de las Americas to launch an open call for Texas-based Latino artists to create artworks related to themes from Jorge Luis Borges’ writings. Most recently, the organization has created a bilingual survey to gather input from Houston-area Latino communities.
Learn more about ALMAAHH via the organization’s website.
