Culture & Community | ARTE Inc. | Arts & Culture | Arts & Anti-racism | Hispanic Heritage Month
Top: David Greco (at the mic) and Danny Diaz in the background. Bottom: Dontae James, Jack Grindley and Darwin Armenta. Lucy Gellman Photos.
Dontae James always knew that he was interested in arts education—but it wasn't until he picked up a recorder and began to teach classes at ARTE, Inc. that he realized how at home he felt in the music classroom. Now, he’s thinking about how to teach the next generation of creatives—all before his senior year of high school.
Last Wednesday, James was one of over 200 educators, artists, nonprofit leaders and community members who gathered to celebrate ARTE, Inc., the Fair Haven arts incubator, cultural hub and educational haven that is fêting 20 years this fall. Held in the carousel at Lighthouse Point Park, the evening recognized the life-changing work that the organization does, from running a gallery by and for Latino artists to teaching kids remotely during a pandemic pivot.
Since 2004, ARTE, Inc. has served hundreds of young people and artists in New Haven, fusing arts learning, professional development, and educational opportunities across the Latin and Afro-Caribbean diaspora. In that time, it has run hundreds of programs and awarded over $125,000 in scholarships and $130,000 to relief efforts following Hurricane Maria. It currently operates out of the Atwater Senior Center in the city's Fair Haven neighborhood.
Bregamos Community Theater Founder Rafael Ramos, who also runs Big Turtle Village with Junta for Progressive Action. Ramos said he's loved collaborating with ARTE.
"When we started ARTE, we said that we wanted to be a small, effective organization," said co-founder and current director David Greco, who runs ARTE with his partner, Daniel Diaz, and a small army of arts educators and working artists including New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) students and teachers. But he had no idea how effective. Twenty years later, it is a learning locomotive and community builder.
Or in the words of Mayor Justin Elicker: "They have created a safe space for young people to do what they love.”
The story of ARTE begins not at its current Atwater Street home, but in living rooms, board rooms, and at kitchen tables across New Haven. In the early 2000s, Greco and Diaz started having conversations with many of the city's nonprofit leaders about the need for Latino education, arts and culture in the city. Around them, the city was changing, and its cultural scene hadn’t kept up with a growing Latino community.
Carlie Matthews-Ramos, who sang "Don't Rain On My Parade" and set the tone for the evening.
Nothing quite filled that gap: There was Junta for Progressive Action, but it was a social service organization. There was Rafael Ramos, but he hadn't yet birthed Bregamos Community Theater in its current Blatchley Avenue spot. There was La Casa Cultural at Yale, but it was cut off from much of the city. Puerto Ricans United didn't exist yet. FLECHAS (Fiestas de Loiza en Connecticut en Honor al Apostol Santiago) was in its waning years. What the two were looking for, they would have to build themselves.
"I kept screaming about it, but it was like nobody heard me," said Diaz, whose family hails from Puerto Rico. "I said, 'Look, we gotta do something.' It was out of a need to make sure that we were part of the conversation."
Then—very gradually—people started listening. In 2004, the two received a grant from Yale's Office of New Haven Affairs (OHNA), then helmed by Mike Morand (he is now New Haven's city historian and the director of community engagement at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library). It allowed them to launch programming and file for nonprofit status for the first time. Wednesday, Greco noted that none of it happened in a silo: it was a law clinic from Yale that helped make the 501c3 a reality.
Brianna Gonzales, Darwin Armenta, Jenny Lopez, Chris Gonzales and Saul Olivas.
ARTE became the organization that did a lot with a little. At their 19 Grand Ave. home, they hosted exhibitions, showcasing Latino voices across a diaspora. From those first animated conversations, Greco and Diaz also expanded their work into the city's schools, from Hispanic Heritage Month celebrations to their now-signature after-school programs.
The first years were lean: ARTE operated with a budget of under $50,000, and dedicated it all to their students and artists in the community. Greco, who had previously been in the hotel industry, threw himself into the work without taking a salary. He didn't pay himself anything for the first four years, and then took a salary of just $30,000 for the next five.
As he and Diaz built out the budget, the two remained cheerleaders and steadfast advocates in the city's Latino community, where they supported everything from Latino-fueled philanthropy initiatives to art shows and Hispanic Heritage Month celebrations at their 19 Grand Ave. hub. Meanwhile, they grew their own extracurricular programs, working with educators to get bilingual arts education into Fair Haven. They partnered with other city organizations, including Junta for Progressive Action, the New Haven Public Schools and Big Turtle Village.
"The biggest benefit to me is all the people that I've met," Greco said as attendees made their way to the pavilion's carousel late in the evening, and he stood still for perhaps the first and only moment of the night. But that benefit goes both ways: by a 10-year anniversary in 2014, ARTE had touched hundreds of New Haveners' lives, from early advocate and board member Maritza Rosa to grateful parents to teachers who wove bomba y plena into their history lessons.
In its second decade, the organization has continued to grow, with college and job readiness programs, university site visits, annual scholarships, cultural education, science workshops and resource distribution meant to fill a gap. It’s also an educational launchpad: despite a pandemic pivot in 2020 and 2021, ARTE’s Saturday Academy has worked to employ both teachers and students from the New Haven Public Schools, giving young people a chance to experience hands-on arts education.
In the past several years, ARTE has also given away over $35,000 in Stop and Shop gift cards, as well as hundreds of winter coats and bicycles. Maybe that's not routine for an arts nonprofit, Greco said, but "if we see a need," he and Diaz jump in to fill it. That's just who they are: the organization has also helped with grocery drives and hurricane relief. They do it in something of a shoestring: only in the last year has the organization's budget reached $300,000.
Serrano: "Having a safe place as a student, it can change your life."
No surprise, then, that many of the night's attendees were excited to sing ARTE's praises. Cheila Serrano, now the director of operations at Junta for Progressive Action, remembered meeting Greco and Diaz several years ago at Fair Haven Day, which only recently returned to Grand Avenue. For her, Greco and Diaz have long been—and still are—the kind of advocates that transform the city through their presence and their long, dedicated record of work.
"Having a safe place as a student, it can change your life," she said. She remembered how now-Alder Evelyn Rodriguez was that person for her, encouraging her to pursue extracurricular activities and taking her on trips beyond New Haven that made her world feel bigger.
For many young people now, "David Greco is that person," she said. In her work at Junta—and as a mom to two teenage girls—she's proud to partner with ARTE on weekly after-school programming at the Atwater Senior Center. "They [ARTE leadership] change the lives of so many students in New Haven. 20 years—it's really a celebration tonight."
Members of PRU. Magaly Cajigas, who sits on the city's Cultural Affairs Commission and is the chair of the board at the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, also praised Greco and Diaz as trailblazers.
One table over, members of Puerto Ricans United (PRU) squeezed in for a group photo, celebrating the night with wide, bright smiles. In the middle of the group, President Joe Rodriguez beamed, thinking back to the first time he met Greco at a PRU event that was roughly a decade ago. Rosa, one of ARTE's early champions and a matriarch in the Latino community, had introduced the two. The rest was history.
For Rodriguez, who helped resuscitate the city's Puerto Rican Festival with fellow members of PRU, ARTE is a kind of cultural torch-bearer that makes New Haven the vibrant and complex city that it is. As a Puerto Rican, a Fair Havener, and a dad, it makes him proud to see the group's fusion of education, arts, and community service.
"Listen, ARTE has been doing the work to preserve and promote Latino art," he said. Moments later, he was one of the first to cheer when Greco—who also jumped in as emcee—introduced a jazz trio of young musicians, all products of the New Haven Public Schools who are also teachers at ARTE.
Other attendees marveled at the sheer scope of the work that ARTE does in a given year. Milda Torres McClain, who is now the executive director of Music Haven, remembered growing up in the city's Hill neighborhood before anything like ARTE existed. Years later, she's seen Greco's impact firsthand, through both Music Haven students and staff. The organization's Communications Manager, Jonathan Lee Jordan, still talks about the impact of an ARTE scholarship on his career as a young musician and storyteller.
In recent years, McClain added, she'a been thrilled to collaborate with them. Last year, members of the Haven String Quartet brought a Hispanic Heritage Month performance to the Atwater Senior Center, where ARTE now runs the bulk of its programming. The concert introduced people to composers including Paquito D’ Rivera, Luis Gustavo Prado, Quirino Mendoza y Cortés, and Israel “Cachao” Gomez.
"More collaboration should happen" going forward, she said. "When we collaborate, beautiful things happen."
The night also included caricature artists and cigar-rolling stations.
Morand, who advocated for that first grant 20 years ago, remembered hearing about ARTE's vision and knowing instinctively that there was immense power in it. Twenty years later, he's proud to have been an early supporter—and is still cheering them on. "Our great strength as a community is our scale," he said, referencing New Haven's dense, diverse and polyphonic 18.7 square miles. "When we work together, we can do great things."
But it may have been teachers, young performers, and parents who made the strongest case for ARTE's next 20 (and 40, and 60, and 80) years. At the mic, young musicians flowed from jazz to vocals to mariachi, giving attendees just a peek of the work they do each week.
Dontae James, a junior at Wilbur Cross High School and ACES Educational Center for the Arts who teaches recorder at ARTE’s Saturday Academy, said that teaching has made him think about the importance of passing arts education on from one generation to the next. "Otherwise, how is the music gonna grow?" he said.
Natalie Quiroz-Duran.
He practices what he preaches: he is part of a jazz trio with fellow ARTE student-teachers Darwin Armenta and Jack Grindley. Wednesday, they eased attendees into a night of celebrating the arts, with swinging jazz that traveled up to the high ceilings and out across a sea of cocktail tables and twinkling white lights.
"It's great," he added. "You learn how to teach and you have this community with the kids."
He wasn’t alone. When Carlie Matthews-Ramos belted a cover of “Don’t Rain On My Parade” from the mic, it seemed to set the tone for the night, more of a benediction than a cover. Twenty minutes later, that sense of magic soared with mariachi musicians from the Spanish Community of Wallingford. Saul Olivas, who leads the group, called it a boon to the community.
Many of the night’s attendees were students who have returned to share their love for the organization. Natalie Quiroz-Duran, a graduate of Wilbur Cross who is now a student at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU), shouted out ARTE as a space where she could step into and embrace her identities as a student, an aspiring educator, and a proud Latina.
After joining ARTE to teach clarinet, she has decided to pursue education at SCSU. Two years ago, a scholarship from the organization helped her pay for some of that degree.
"I just want to give thanks to ARTE for giving students of color a shot," she said at the time. Wednesday, she added that teaching in the ASA had helped her grow as an educator and a young Latina.
Author-illustrator duo Nohra Bernal and Rubén Rodríguez Ferreira also praised ARTE as a social connector and skill builder, particularly during the first years of the Covid-19 pandemic. As the head of Yale University’s Music In The Schools initiative, Rodríguez Ferreira said ARTE has been especially supportive of students, encouraging them to pursue opportunities that may have otherwise seemed out of reach.
But he and Bernal also love the organization as parents. For years, their son Juan Pablo worked as a brass teacher for ARTE, braving a remote pivot when the pandemic sent weekly programming (and his own classes at Wheaton College) online. The two remembered a kind of mini concert, held on screens across the city to bring people together.
"It was just beautiful," Bernal said. "Everyone tried to have some kind of normalcy. We were all connected."