(Jessica Zapata, founder of EAL. Photo taken from https://eugeneartelatino.wordpress.com/about/)

Jessica Zapata and Eugene Arte Latino

By: Gus Morris

When I first met Jessica Zapata, it was on the patio of Café Roma, just down the road from the University of Oregon. She was carrying her purse and a large over the shoulder bag, full of documents and her computer. I was not her only stop that afternoon. Zapata was racing from meeting to meeting. I was just the first in a busy afternoon of appointments for her. Such is the life of the founder and director of the Eugene Arte Latino community.

Zapata founded Arte Latino back in 2007, the same year she moved to Eugene. She came to Eugene after living in San Francisco for several years. But her journey started in Mexico, where she went to University.

Zapata has always been an avid supporter of the arts. In San Francisco, she enjoyed being a part of a large and involved Latino community. Even in Mexico, she volunteered with cultural events, although never organized anything. When she came to Eugene in 2007 though, she was surprised by the lack of Latino culture and heritage. She began working with several schools to organize cultural events for the students. These events took off. Soon parents were coming to her, requesting she do more and more events, not just for the kids, but for the whole Latino community. It was after the Day of the Dead Celebration in 2007 when she decided that this is what she wanted to do.

The Day of the Dead celebration was one of her first large scale events. The students made art that was on display, Zapata brought in cultural music and dancers, and even held a small parade in downtown Eugene. The event was incredibly well received and the community was left wanting more.

Shortly after she founded Eugene Arte Latino.

“My main purpose it to share our culture and to preserve our culture,” Zapata said. “A lot of the kids have Mexican or Latino background, but they were born here in America. I noticed that for a lot of the families it is very important that their kids learn about their parent’s culture.”

In the eight years since its founding, Eugene Arte Latino has grown bigger than Zapata could have dreamed of. She is currently taking small business classes at Lane Community College, to go along with her already busy schedule because she wants to create a permanent multicultural center in Eugene.