In the pandemic, “la cultura” has found a new “casa” online
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This spring participants in Hola Cultura’s Storytelling Program for Experiential Learning (SPEL) sat down with Director of la Casa de la Cultura El Salvador, Jeannette Noltenius, via Zoom for an interview about how her organization has adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This interview took place after SPEL had transitioned to an exclusively online format due to the pandemic. Our group of participants and mentors in this new after school program seized the opportunity to continue interviewing local artists and other members of the community, who are active in the arts and humanities. We are documenting how they, their communities and fans are coping during this health crisis.
Like many organizations in the area, la Casa de la Cultura has kept its doors open virtually during the pandemic, pushing through these difficult times with help from the organization’s existing audiences, volunteers and supporters. It has kept its special events alive through virtual initiatives, like the virtual Peña Cultural de los Viernes, which takes place on the last Friday of each month. Hola Cultura has also collaborated with la Casa in the past. We worked together on last year’s Day of the Dead celebration that we all hope can be possible again in the future.
In Hola Cultura’s interview, Jeannette told participants about how the community has continued to reach out during the pandemic, interested in participating in any way they can. This groundswell of interest has turned the organization into “a place where people feel it is about them. It’s not about la Casa de la Cultura El Salvador. We are a platform. We are a place of interaction, but the action and the joy of the community comes from those of you.”
Noltenius came to the U.S. from El Salvador when she was 19 years old and had an unconventional career path that led her to la Casa de la Cultura. She also shared her professional experiences and provided insights and advice to our SPEL participants, who are teenagers and young adults just starting to build their futures.
Read our interview below to find out more.
Q&A
Can you tell us about the background and inspiration for starting the organization?
The Salvadoran Cultural Institute came about because the ambassador of El Salvador to the U.S. was a friend of mine, an architect who loved the arts. He is a pianist and very much a cinema buff. His name is Francisco Altschul. He always wanted to have a group of Salvadorans from the civil society, who were going to support cultural activities in the D.C. Metro area. Three of us started it. We became a 501(c)3 [I.R.S. recognized nonprofit] organization in December of 2015. We work collaboratively with others so that the mission of the organization is to educate, promote, and celebrate Salvadoran and Salvadoran-American arts and culture. We have been able to engage people from all of Latin America, so we’re basically open to not just Latin America but whoever wants to join our events.
What role has the organization played or in what way has it influenced the Salvadoran government to be more receptive about the importance of acknowledging Salvadoran culture in D.C.?
I think that the government was already doing things at the embassy. They had done exhibits but they hadn’t had regular, scheduled events. We were able to do that with the Salvadoran Consulate in Silver Spring. On the last Friday of every month we have a cultural event called una Peña Cultural de los Viernes. Now we have done 26 of those, so what happens is you create an audience and an expectation that culture will be part of the Salvadoran consulate. In that sense we have influenced them with the notion that culture is not something that is “parachuted” from the outside, it is not outward directed.
The Salvadoran and Latino community in the United States needs to be engaged in educating itself about its own heritage in order to develop a positive cultural identity. This identity can be nurtured through celebrating its artists, singers, poets, painters, and its history. It is a participatory process where the community also contributes its own creations, that is why the monthly Peña Cultural de los Viernes at the Salvadoran Consulate has an open microphone section to allow community members to share what they are feeling and their creations.
In the open mic, people come from all over, interested in sharing their poetry. We have had people from Iraq. Two of them that came and recited in their language. We have had a poet from Sri Lanka, you see what I mean? Whoever wants to share, it’s open. There has been una Peña Cultural Argentina and una Peña Caribeña, una Peña Guatemalteca celebrating the marimba. Our whole motto is: it’s a place where people can come together, support one another, feel part of a community in the arts.
How do you think the community has shaped the organization?
We have built partnerships to do that so the community has influence. We have been working with different schools, for instance with Carlos Rosario. We work also with the Sacred Heart Parish elementary school. We have had the library, for instance, in Gaithersburg, Maryland, say: ‘We want you to come to our library.’ In that sense it is a dialogue. It’s not what we do, it’s what we do with others that’s important.
What would you say are some of the greatest achievements of the organization to date?
I think that the most important achievement is that poets and singers feel that they have a place where they can express themselves and they don’t feel alone– they feel supported. Unfortunately, what we hear in the mainstream media is that Latinos and immigrants are rapists, drug addicts and are constantly breaking the law. Therefore we must highlight our cultural, artistic and educational achievements to counterbalance these negative stereotypes. We’ve had some problems but those are minor compared to all of the development in our community. It’s a way in which we validate the wonderful cultural heritage that we bring. It also validates Spanish as a language that enriches the U.S. It is not a problem that we speak Spanish. Es una cosa maravillosa que la gente hable español y que pueda hablar español, que se sienta orgullosa de hablar español. (It’s a wonderful thing that people speak Spanish and are able to speak Spanish, that they feel proud to speak Spanish.) It’s an asset. To me that’s the big challenge. For instance, now with this COVID-19, what has happened is people have contacted us and asked: ‘Can we read our poetry on your page?’ And we say, ‘yes of course.’ ‘Can we do it on Facebook live?’ Yes, you can. In other words it’s now a place where people feel it is about them. It’s not about La Casa de la Cultura El Salvador. We are a platform. We are a place of interaction, but the action and the joy of the community comes from those of you. I would love to have any of you who sing or write poetry recite, read stories. [All are] welcome–absolutely a joy to us.
And how can young people continue to get involved with the organization?
It would be wonderful if you have any poems or any writings or any shout outs of anything that you feel the Latino community wants to hear. Like one of the stories of how one of your relatives survived COVID-19 or anything like that we can put it up. We can announce it too. We have a constant contact list. If you have an event, we can advertise it. We really are there to serve everybody’s needs. You are the ones that are making things–the second generation. If you want to rap, if you want to do a presentation, show us one of your paintings, or you can actually get your friends to do some paintings, it would be lovely. I will put them up.
What are the future plans of the organization?
Right now the plans are to continue doing many things in El Salvador. As a matter of fact, we do the exhibits there. We are engaging students. We have had as many as 700 students looking at them. We are now taking Salvadoran-American artists living in the U.S. and taking their work to El Salvador.
Could you talk a little bit about the professional journey that took you to where you are today? Many in this group are in high school or in college, and they’re just getting some professional experience. I think it’s always good for them to hear how you might start out in one field and end up in another.
I worked in public health for 26 years. Once I retired, I said let me go do the things I love to do. I love to promote the arts. The arts have been essential in my life. Throughout my life I’ve been surrounded by artists and loving art. So what can I say? Now I am lucky enough to be able to spend my time doing what I love. I love psychology, loved working in schools. I loved working in public health throughout the country, and my work for the Panamerican Health Organization for 12 years.
You can have many lives and it’s all right. It is a myth that your career now is something that you have to know what you’re going to be doing for the rest of your life. That is absurd. Basically a career is a place where you learn more in order to do more of what you want to do. I think, for me, the basis of my life has been about [the question:] ‘How can I serve others? How can I serve, if there is a need that needs to be met? How do I adjust my life to the needs of the community?’ So it’s a mistake to think that we determine our lives. To me, it is a mistake to think that way. Basically life helps us to open ourselves to new opportunities of learning. I’m learning Zoom. I’m very bad technologically but I’m learning. So you are going to see all this Facebook live. Life is that way. That’s all I have to say to you. What a joy it is to be going to bed at night every night and say: ‘What did I learn today?’ That is what makes life joyous.
With that, thank you very much for the interview. As you can see, I enjoy every day and that’s what counts.
To find out more about Jeannette Noltenius and her work, visit Casa de la Cultura El Salvador.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and concession.
-Delia Beristain Noriega
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