Xispas Information

The group behind Xispas Magazine first met in October of 2002 with a vision to create something special and vital for the Xicano community. Presently Xispas' staff includes Sergio Hernandez, a longtime community activist, cartoonist and artist who was also on the Con Safos editorial board in the 1970s and 1980s; educator and community leader Diane Hernandez; award-winning music producer, filmmaker and head of Ramparts Records, Hector Gonzalez; his wife and co-Ramparts Record owner Lava Gonzalez; award-winning TV producer and documentarian Jim Velarde; writers Alisha M. Rosas, James Rodrigo Retana and Rubi Mendoza; artist and webmaster Mark Vallen, and others. Luis J. Rodriguez, who was an editor/publisher of XismeArte in the early 1980s in East Los Angeles, will serve as Xispas' editor. Xispas magazine grew out of Tia Chucha's Café Cultural - a bookstore, café, art gallery and performance space that has become a major cultural gathering place and arts center in the Northeast San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles. Acclaimed Xicano writer Luis J. Rodriguez, his wife Trini Rodriguez and their brother-in-law Enrique Sanchez created the Tia Chucha's to fill a badly-needed void where some 400,000 people reside, around 80 percent Xicano, Mexican and Central American, although there were no movie houses, bookstores or decent cultural centers until Tia Chucha's opened their doors in December of 2001and this in the so-called "Entertainment/Media" center of the world. Tia Chucha's Café Cultural features a full coffee bar and café; a specialized bookstore with cultural, historical, political, and literary books, including a great selection of bilingual children's books; an art gallery; a performance space; and an Internet Café. In June of 2003, the Café leased space next door to inaugurate its not-for-profit arm called Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural. Although it is a separate entity from the Café with its own board of directors and accounting system, the Centro and Café work together to enhance the intellectual, ...