2022 MOLAA Afro-Latinx Festival
presented by The Port of Long Beach
Special Edition: G.R.I.T.
Generating Radical Inclusion & Transformation = G.R.I.T.
This series of conversations explores how grit, an attribute often given to people who overcome obstacles, can serve as a tool to build agency. With a specific focus on creative expression, G.R.I.T seeks to expand what it means to practice art for social change. Hosted by Griselda Suárez.
José Angel Castro, The NowHouse Education Group
Jose Angel Castro is a Garifuna, multi-disciplinary artist, teacher and facilitator based in Los Angeles. Castro has an eclectic range of professional experience including dance, photography, theater, fashion, music and teaching. He is currently preparing work for a transformation-themed, solo art show entitled “Chrysaline” scheduled for May 2022. In May 2021, Castro co-created and was lead artist and facilitator for Go Make Something: Working Through and Beyond The Convergence, an Arts Council for Long Beach program meant to help creatives process the convergence of crises in 2020. He is continuing this work leading a cohort of ACLB 2021/22 Professional Artist Fellows in the programs next stage called “Converge Presented by Go Make Something Kids”—a youth arts expo seeking to teach students resilience through artistic expression..
In early 2015, Jose Angel founded The NowHouse Education Group—an organization dedicated to creating impactful, compelling educational experiences aimed at making life a little better. Teaching is a dominant discipline of Jose Angel’s professional career. He considers it an art form unto itself and a creative practice that allows him to pour every skill he has acquired into a multi-faceted, dynamic pursuit.
“What are you?”, “You speak Spanish, but, I thought you were Black?”, and (from many in the Latinx community) “Where did you learn to speak Spanish so well?” Are a few of the questions Jose Angel would often field growing up as the first US-born son of Honduran immigrants. This external struggle for cultural identification has always remained exactly that, external. From an early age, Castro recognized his personal diversity as an opportunity to bridge gaps between his African American and Afrolatinx/Latinx communities and to positively impact the lives of the people around him. In a society that seeks to identify him in a single category, Jose Angel Castro proudly embraces all aspects of his rich heritage.