Six Questions for Alberto Mejia, National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures Deputy Director

Alberto Mejia

Alberto Mejia is the deputy director of the San Antonio-based National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC). Founded in 1989, it has emerged as one of the most prominent supporters of Latino art and culture in the U.S. by providing grants and leadership training, conducting research, and engaging in advocacy. Mejia manages staff and coordinates the association’s response to an ever-increasing demand for its services from organizations across the country.

Mejia was raised in San Diego and Seattle, and eventually landed in Austin, Texas, where he was the city’s manager of cultural funding and investments, senior director of community programs at youth development organization Creative Action, and manager of the Dougherty Arts Center. An alumnus of the NALAC Leadership Institute and the NALAC Advocacy Leadership Institute, Mejia joined the association in 2020.

I recently caught up with Mejia on what was a mercifully mild day in Austin to discuss his career trajectory, why he’s optimistic about the state of philanthropy, and the importance of “seeing the code behind the design.” Here are some excerpts from that discussion, which have been edited for clarity.

What made you decide you wanted to work in the nonprofit sector?

I don’t think it was an explicit decision. I was a hip hop performing artist and MC in college, and through emceeing, I discovered creative youth development work. Being a teaching artist first, I saw the transformative power of culture and thought of other places where these kinds of experiences can happen. When you create that space between people, how do you grow it? How do you make it more of a normal part of life? And so my entry into the nonprofit sector was through community building and by asking those kinds of questions.

Who are your biggest influences?

I am really influenced by youth movements and culture bearers committed to justice and equity. My career has been defined by working with young people, feeding off of their ideas, and sharing power, and that goes back to my background in direct services, social work settings, and teaching.

At the other end of the spectrum, I get inspired by the organizing, cosmovision, and cultural practices of Indigenous communities in the Americas. There’s an ancestral knowledge and culture that’s contained in those communities. You have a kinship and mutuality with the land, and I think that is a really important counterbalance and complement to youth-inspired culture and change and innovation.

Speaking more concretely, I look at organizations like the NDN Collective and the way that they’re approaching social change work, whether it’s grantmaking, infrastructure building, financial investments, or respecting treaties, through a lens of sovereignty. It’s so important because it teaches those of us in the nonprofit sector to ask, “Am I innovating enough? Where’s the edge of the work?” Not that you always have to step over that edge, but you need to keep pushing it and to keep it innovative, so that we’re not just like another industry that reifies itself. 

So that’s a huge inspiration — Indigenous communities, organizers and culture bearers that are approaching the work with a lens that is old, but also new at the same time.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

I’ll quote [Surdna Foundation Thriving Cultures Program Director] Javier Torres-Campos. It’s very simple, and it’s see the code behind the design. It’s easy to get tunnel vision in mission-based work, so it’s important to have a strong analysis of the systems and the history behind the problem you’re trying to solve. It also applies on an interpersonal level. This work requires emotional intelligence, and when you have the compassion to “see the code” behind how a person carries themselves or operates at a given moment, you’re going to have a deeper reservoir to understand them when you’re trying to accomplish some very difficult things.

What makes you optimistic about the state of philanthropy?

Artists face the unfair expectation to be incredible changemakers, but they’re often not supported with the necessary resources and the relationships to sustain the change-making that they’re engaged in. But now, I think people are starting to understand the systems that need to support artists for them to make impact.

You can see that reflected in the relief grants during the COVID period. It provided a window into the level of need for artists and organizations that people hadn’t really thought about. So I’m encouraged by the fact that people are identifying the collaborations and relationships that can help artists become changemakers, learning from different types of funding interventions, and not thinking in a siloed way when it comes to making an impact.

What’s the last great book you read?

That would be “Gods of Jade and Shadow” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. It’s about a young girl living in a Mayan village whose family is mestizo and she comes across this ancient Mayan god of the underworld, and they go on this adventure through 1920s Mexico. I just finished it and it’s incredible.

Any parting thoughts?

I think there’s an enormous opportunity for us to learn from social change and movements outside of the United States. For example, how does the Global South manage resources? How do organizations think about the connection between a healthy society and the philanthropic sector? It’s important for us to see how social change operates in places where many groups create change without any funding. I think they can teach us a lot about what’s possible.