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Centro Cultural Chicano, Minneapolis

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Centro Tyrone Guzman

Centro Tyrone Guzman, at 1915 Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis, undated but ca. 2010s. The building is painted in bright orange with blue and red lining, and a bright black sign with white letters that reads “bienvenidos” (welcome). Used with the permission of Centro Tyrone Guzman.

Founded in 1974, Centro Cultural Chicano (known since 2014 as Centro Tyrone Guzman) is the oldest and largest multi-service Latine organization in Minneapolis. Centro’s mission and values are grounded in supporting the well-being of Latine families through a holistic approach to education and family engagement. Annually, Centro staff serve around 5,000 participants diverse in Latin American nationality, gender identity, and sexuality, as well as in age groups.

Centro Cultural Chicano was founded in 1974 in Minneapolis, on the homeland of Dakota people. Unlike previous Latine organizations in the Twin Cities, which were typically under the control of the Catholic Church, Centro was organized by and on behalf of Chicanos who were actively involved in the Chicano movement. Historians like Vicki L. Ruiz and Rodolfo F. Acuña, as well as educators and activists like Anna Nieto-Gómez, Martha P. Cotera, and Alma García, have defined el movimiento (the movement) as a convergence of multiple protests. It addressed multiple issues, including educational equality, police brutality, farmworker rights, reproductive justice, and the struggle for “homeland” ownership in the southwest United States, also known as Aztlán.

Centro’s original founders were Irene Gomez-Bethke, Eulalia “Lolly” Reyes de Smith, Alma Samuel, Maria Gomez, Ramona Arreguin de Rosales, and Marcela L. Trujillo. The intergenerational group came together during the 1960s to share their concerns with police brutality, the lack of educational resources, student attrition rates, and inaccessible health services.

The group was formally embraced by the Minneapolis Chicano community in the early 1970s after a conference held at the Spring Hill Conference Center in Wayzata. The conference was organized by Chicanos Vencerán, a grassroots, community-based organization committed to fighting for Latine civil rights. Not long after, Gloria Gallegos, Manuel P. Guzman, and Donn J. Vargas officially incorporated Centro as an organization in the city of Minneapolis on February 5, 1974. Centro’s goal at the time was to provide bilingual social services to over 10,000 Spanish-speaking people of Chicano and/or Hispanic descent in Hennepin County.

With the support of Dr. Marcela L. Trujillo, a Chicana professor at the University of Minnesota, Centro received its first grant of $30,000 from the McKnight Foundation in December of 1976. The grant funded the expansion of bilingual and bicultural social services and the leasing of Centro’s first building. In 1981, Centro received funding from the United Way Foundation, allowing staff to further refine their three main programs: social adjustment, family counseling, and chemical dependency. They also developed organizational support for several political organizations in the Twin Cities, like the Minneapolis Hispanic Advisory Council.

While Centro maintained a Chicano activist spirit through the 1980s and early 1990s, its programming took a different route in 1996. To better meet the needs of Centro’s growing Central and South American membership, Executive Director Tyrone Guzman reinvented the organization’s mission by anchoring education as a holistic strategy for intergenerational programming. Many Central and South American immigrants to Minnesota were fleeing gang violence, political violence, domestic violence, and/or natural disasters in their home countries. Central and South American immigrants made up 1 percent of Minnesota’s population in 2000, and by 2010, they made up around 2 percent.

In 2014, five years after Guzman’s death, Centro officially changed its name to Centro Tyrone Guzman to honor his contributions and celebrate his thirteen years of service as executive director. By then, Centro offered families an early childhood program, a youth program, and an adult and aging program. The early childhood program, called Siembra, used a bilingual Montessori learning method to cultivate an educational environment that values creative choices, hands-on learning, and collaborative play at the preschool level. Raíces, Centro’s youth program, similarly promoted healthy behaviors by mentoring teens as they navigated their educational requirements and familial obligations. The adult and aging program called Wise Elders, on the other hand, focused on the wellbeing of Latine adults. One of Centro’s oldest programs, it connected Latine families with hands-on bilingual resources on Alezheimer’s disease and dementia that were culturally relevant. Centro additionally provided community support services, community engagement amenities, and an information center.

After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Centro created new support services to effectively assist struggling Latine families. It raised $730,000 in less than thirty days to assist 984 families (3,602 individuals) during the height of the pandemic, with $154,228 of those funds covering hot meals, food baskets, diapers, baby formula, car seats, technology, and hygiene products. Centro also partnered with Metro Transit, a public transportation operator in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, to distribute 6,100 deliveries of food and water across sixty-two zip codes, while the remaining $575,175 was used to provide families with rent assistance.

Editor’s note: Centro used the word “Latine” in place of the Spanish-language masculine “Latino” to challenge the binary gender system and offer members a more fluid identification category.

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“2020 Annual Report.” Centro Tyrone Guzman. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d61753e810bcf000151546f/t/61a8e9e90d341c4cb4b12648/1638459895089/Annual+Report+2020.pdf

Acuña, Rodolfo. Occupied America: A History of Chicanos. Boston: Longman, 2011.

“Articles of Incorporation,” February 1974. Box 1, Folder 1, Irene Gomez-Bethke papers, 1970–2001, Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.
http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00039/pdfa/00039-00026.pdf

“Centro Cultural Chicano: 1980 Annual Report with a Historical Account of Centro Cultural Chicano’s First Years,” 1980. Box 1, Folder 2, Irene Gomez-Bethke papers, 1970–2001, Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul. http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00039/pdfa/00039-00035.pdf

Centro Tyrone Guzman. “Covid-19 Impact Report.” Provided to the author by Roxana Linares.

“Centro Tyrone Guzman: Desde 1974 - Since 1974.” Centro Tyrone Guzman.
https://www.centromn.org

Escobar, Citlali. The Creation of Centro Tyrone Guzman (formerly Centro Cultural Chicano). Minneapolis: Centro Tyrone Guzman / Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, University of Minnesota, 2019.

——— . Zoom interview with the author, April 27, 2022.

García, Alma M, ed. Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings. New York: Routledge, 1997.

Kaul, Greta. “State of Immigration: Where New Minnesotans Have Come From, From Statehood to Today.” MinnPost, April 14, 2018.
https://www.minnpost.com/new-americans-greater-minnesota/2018/04/state-immigration-where-new-minnesotans-have-come-statehood

Linares, Roxana. Phone interview with the author, May 2, 2022.

“Organization charts, undated and 1980,” July 1980. Box 1, Folder 2, Irene Gomez-Bethke papers, 1970–2001, Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul. http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00039/pdfa/00039-00039.pdf

Ruiz, Vicki L. From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America. 10th ed. New York. Oxford University Press, 1998 (reprint 2008).

Related Images

Centro Tyrone Guzman
Centro Tyrone Guzman
Centro Cultural Chicano’s articles of incorporation
Centro Cultural Chicano’s articles of incorporation
Centro Cultural Chicano newsletter (1977)
Centro Cultural Chicano newsletter (1977)
Centro Cultural Chicano’s first building
Centro Cultural Chicano’s first building
Centro Cultural Latino’s organizational structure
Centro Cultural Latino’s organizational structure
Centro Cultural Latino’s bilingual education program
Centro Cultural Latino’s bilingual education program
Irene Gomez-Bethke and Ronn Vargas with Minneapolis Mayor Don Fraser
Irene Gomez-Bethke and Ronn Vargas with Minneapolis Mayor Don Fraser
Centro Cultural Chicano table at “Fair of the Heart”
Centro Cultural Chicano table at “Fair of the Heart”
Workshop inside Centro Cultural Chicano
Workshop inside Centro Cultural Chicano

Turning Point

After becoming Centro’s executive director in 1996, Tyrone Guzman reinvents the organization’s mission by anchoring education as a holistic strategy for intergenerational programming. This allows him to effectively meet the needs of Minneapolis-St.Paul’s growing Central and South American immigrant communities.

Chronology

1960s

Irene Gomez-Bethke, Eulalia “Lolly” Reyes de Smith, Alma Samuel, Maria Gomez, Ramona Arreguin de Rosales, and Marcela Lucero Trujillo meet to discuss police brutality, the lack of educational resources in their community, and inaccessible health services.

early 1970s

Chicanos Vencerán, a grassroots, community-based organization committed to fighting for Latine civil rights, formally recognizes the intergenerational group after the Springhill Chicano Conference in Wayzata, and Centro Cultural Chicano is established.

1974

Centro Cultural Chicano is incorporated as an organization in the city of Minneapolis on February 5 by Gloria Gallegos, Manuel P. Guzman, and Donn J. Vargas.

1976

Centro receives its first grant from the McKnight Foundation with the support of Dr. Marcela L. Trujillo, a Chicana professor at the University of Minnesota. The grant funds the expansion of social services and the leasing of Centro’s first building.

1980

Executive Director Donn J. Vargas creates a board of directors made up of Eduardo Villalon, board chair; Irene Bethke-Gomez, first vice chair; Albert Garcia, second vice chair; John Pacheco, treasurer; and Rafael Esparza, secretary.

1981

Centro receives funding from United Way of the Minneapolis Area. Staff refine their programs, expand their services, and develop organizational support for political organizations in the Twin Cities, like the Minneapolis Hispanic Advisory Council.

1996

Executive Director Tyrone Guzman refocuses the organization’s mission on inter-generational education. Its name briefly changes to Centro to provide a more pan-ethnic approach to multi-servicing, as Central and South American migration to Minnesota rises.

2009

Guzman dies.

2014

To honor Guzman’s contributions and to celebrate his thirteen years of service as executive director, Centro officially changes its name to Centro Tyrone Guzman.

2020

Centro Tyrone Guzman creates an emergency response team to manage COVID-19-related services to 984 families (3,602 individuals), connecting them to resources that address housing and food insecurity.

2022

Centro is the oldest Latine social service agency in Minneapolis, serving around 5,000 participants annually.