About ACTA

The Alliance for California Traditional Arts’ (ACTA’s) mission is to “ensure that California’s future holds California’s past.”  ACTA is a statewide nonprofit that promotes and supports ways for cultural traditions to thrive now and into the future by providing advocacy, resources, and connections for folk & traditional artists and their communities.

ACTA connects artists, communities, and funders to each other, information, and resources through grants and contracts, convenings, research, and technical assistance.  ACTA also provides advocacy through local and national field-building.  Rooted in California’s cultural communities, ACTA is in direct communication with tradition bearers who are often un- or under-recognized by mainstream funders.  ACTA’s programs and services are created, evaluated, and evolved as a response to the specific needs of these artists and their communities.

Folk & traditional artists are tradition bearers: people who transmit what they believe, know, do, and create with others who share a common heritage, language, religion, occupation, or region.  These expressions are deeply rooted in and reflective of a community’s shared standards of beauty, values, or life experiences.  Folk and traditional arts are, ultimately, passed on from one generation to the next and express a collective wisdom, rather than a unique personal aesthetic.

ACTA is generously supported by:

• California Arts Council
• California Community Foundation
• Columbia Foundation
• East Bay Community Foundation
• Fresno Arts Council
• Walter & Elise Haas Fund
• The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation
• The James Irvine Foundation
• The Metabolic Studio, a direct charitable activity of The Annenberg Foundation
• National Endowment for the Arts
• San Francisco Arts Commission
• The San Francisco Foundation
• Taproot Foundation

Paula "Pimm" Allen
Traditional Resources Program, United Indian Health Services
Arcata, California

Melanie Beene
Executive Director, Community Initiatives
San Francisco, CA 

Emmett Castro, V.P. of Finance and Administration
Certified Public Accountant, Castro Accountancy Corporation
Fresno, CA

Jo Farb Hernandez, Secretary
Director, Natalie and James Thompson Art Gallery, San Jose State University
Principal, Curatorial and Museum Management Services
Director, SPACES
Watsonville, CA

Joel Jacinto
Executive Director, Search to Involve Pilipino Americans
Los Angeles, CA

Maria Rosario Jackson, Ph.D.
Senior Research Associate, The Urban Institute
Washington, D.C.

Sojin Kim, Ph.D.
Curator, History Department, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
Los Angeles, CA

Amy Kitchener (ex officio)
Executive Director, Alliance for California Traditional Arts
Fresno, CA

Libby Maynard
Co-founder and Executive Director, Ink People Center for the Arts
Eureka, CA

Chike Nwoffiah, V.P. of External Development
Executive Director, Oriki Theater
Mountain View, CA

Amy Rouillard
San Diego, CA

Charlie Seemann, Board President
Executive Director, Western Folklife Center
Elko, NV

Daniel Sheehy, Ph.D., V.P. of Governance
CEO, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
Washington, D.C.

Deborah Wong, Ph.D.
Professor of Music, University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA

Emeritus Board Members

Robert Arroyo
Retired Instructor of Political Science & Chicano/Latino Studies, Fresno City College
Retired Administrator, Fresno City College
Kingsburg, CA

Natividad Cano
Director, Los Camperos de Nati Cano
Los Angeles, CA

Vicki Filgas
Director, Los Paisanos folklórico dance troupe
Spanish language teacher, Selma High School
Selma, CA

Frank LaPena
Professor Emeritus, American Indian Studies, CSU Sacramento
Traditional Maidu dance master
Visual artist
Sacramento, CA

Bess Lomax Hawes
Former Director, Folk & Traditional Arts Program, National Endowment for the Arts
West Hills, CA

Malcolm Margolin
Founder and Publisher, Heyday Books
Executive Director, Heyday Institute
Berkeley, CA

Nancy Marquez
Former Director, Arte Américas
Fresno, CA

Hugo Morales
Executive Director, Radio Bilingüe
Fresno, CA

Peter Pennekamp
Executive Director, Humboldt Area Foundation
Bayside, CA

Sherwood Chen, Associate Director and Apprenticeship Program Manager, has worked in festival production, youth arts programming, arts grantmaking, and community arts working for organizations including the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the San Francisco Foundation and the Los Angeles Music Center Education Division.  As a performer, Sherwood has worked with artists including Min Tanaka/Maijuku, Anna Halprin, Oguri, Grisha Coleman/echo::systems, Sara Shelton Mann, Ko Murobushi, Amara Tabor-Smith and Shinichi Iova-Koga/inkBoat. He serves a board member of Intersection for the Arts (San Francisco) and Khmer Arts Academy (Long Beach/Phnom Penh).  Sherwood was hired as the Associate Director in November 2006.

Lily Kharrazi, Living Cultures Grants Program Manager, earned an M.A. in Dance Ethnology, studying at UCLA with Allegra Fuller Snyder, a pioneer in the field of dance and culture.  Kharrazi served as the Program Director of World Arts West, the producers of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival for 9 seasons, during which time through extensive outreach efforts, new and little known cultural dance had the opportunity to be presented.  Prior to joining ACTA, Lily worked in the refugee resettlement field as well as arts education.  She continues to write freelance on issues of dance and culture.  Lily was hired as the Living Cultures Grants Program Manager in May 2005.

Amy Kitchener, Executive Director, is a folklorist who has worked in the public sector since 1991 including coordinating the LA Public Library’s “Shades of L.A.” community photo history collecting project, consulting with the California State Library’s project “Shades of California,” and serving as folklorist in residence with the Arizona Commission on the Arts.  She started the first programs of the Fresno Arts Council’s Folk Arts Program in 1993 and served as the program director for 9 years.  Amy co-founded ACTA in 1997 and spearheaded its development as a private nonprofit organization.  She was hired as the Founding Executive Director in March 2002.  She holds an M.A. in Folklore & Mythology from UCLA and is a published author.

Amy Lawrence, Operations Coordinator, has worked in the nonprofit sector since 1999.  She served as the Education and Tour Coordinator for the Fresno Historical Society and managed the Society’s museum store.  Amy earned a multiple subject teaching credential from CSU, Fresno, and has taught second, third, and fourth grade elementary school students. She holds an M.A. in History and her master’s thesis, Minnie Eshleman Sherman: Agricultural Pioneer, Social Activist, City Mother, was published in Fresno-Past and Present and won a research merit award from CSU, Fresno.  Amy joined ACTA in June 2009.

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