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After years of transformative work with the Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA), Quetzal Flores, a dynamic Chicano artivist and cultural worker, is embarking on new adventures. While we are sad to see him go, we are excited to see what the future holds for him.
Born in Salinas, CA, and raised in Northeast Los Angeles, Quetzal grew up immersed in social justice movements through his activist and organizer parents. At 13, he picked up his first guitar, sparking a lifelong journey of artistry and activism. In 1993, he founded the East Los Angeles-based rock group Quetzal, blending music and community dialogue to create what has become a cornerstone of Chicano music. His collaborations with icons like Los Lobos, Zack de la Rocha, and Susana Baca, along with the Smithsonian Folkways release of the band’s album Imaginaries, have cemented his legacy as a cultural innovator.
Quetzal’s influence extends beyond the stage: as Program Manager at ACTA, he expanded our reach in Southern California, using music as a tool for empowerment and social change. He brought a unique artistic vision to ACTA’s programs like Arts in Corrections and California Reentry and Enrichment (CARES), bringing traditional arts into restorative justice spaces and fostering healing in underserved communities. Reflecting on his time at ACTA, Quetzal shared memorable moments and impactful stories from his time at ACTA during a recent interview.
Q: How did you first come to ACTA?
Quetzal Flores: My mentor and teacher Russell Rodriguez was a Program Manager at ACTA and had helped to curate a show of Chicano bands in D.C. I got a call from Executive Director Amy Kitchener while I was living in Seattle. She said, “This is Amy Kitchener from the Alliance for California Traditional Arts, and we want you to do a show. I met you at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival some years ago. We want you to do a show in D.C. with Agustin Lira on Chicano music from California; ACTA is curating this show at the Library of Congress American Folklife Center and the Kennedy Center.” So we ended up doing this show and that was my first interaction with ACTA.
Q: What’s a favorite memory from your time at ACTA?
Quetzal Flores: A memory that is seared in my mind was my first board meeting. I walk in, I sit down. I’m kind of just observing, a couple of days old in the organization. And there’s a discussion around whether or not social justice should be in the mission statement. There’s a board member that says, “You know, that just sounds really heavy handed.” And then another board member says, “Well, how about we say ‘let’s burn the whole goddamn thing down and take it over?’ How does social justice sound now?” And I was like, “Oh my God, I’m in the right place.” And that was such a beautiful and affirming moment for me, arriving into an organization, coming from a social justice background and family and just landing in the right place at the right time. And it was evidence that I needed to continue there as long as I could.
Q: What has been the most impactful part of your work at ACTA?
Quetzal Flores: The California Reentry and Enrichment (CARES) program, which focuses on traditional arts as restorative justice and healing from trauma, has been a highlight for me in the past several years. We’ve been able to see the continuum from the beginnings of the work—and even the inquiry of whether or not we should enter into this work with traditional arts in prisons—to now a fully formed understanding and designed, curated program that is having this incredible impact.
I think it was at the beginning of this series, a three year program with CARES. I was doing a curriculum called Power of Community. So many important moments and discussions came out of it. In one session, we were reading Bell Hooks’ The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love, and a young man said, “I am understanding that I have blamed my mother all these years for the fact that we had to pick food out of the trash. And I’m understanding that it wasn’t her fault, and that this is systemic and that I’m not alone.” It was such a powerful moment, and so many other people were affirming this person’s feelings and realizations. It was always a very emotional space where men could be vulnerable, inside the most confined conditions that a human being can experience in this day and age.
There were other moments where we had a very healthy discussion around housing and housing justice inside a prison. And what they thought and how some of them were like, “no, like people don’t deserve housing as a human right. It should be something that is merited. If you work hard for it, you can get it.” And then all the way to understanding that “actually, yes, housing is a human right” and being able to land there with everybody through a very thorough and mediated discussion. These moments are incredibly important as we think into the future about prison abolition, about abolishing all systems of violence and oppression. Understanding how to have the conversation is incredibly important. Because oftentimes we arrive into spaces and the questions are not the right questions. We get ahead of ourselves and we want the answers right away and we don’t let ourselves sit in the process. A lot of the process based stuff that we’re doing through the CARES program is incredibly important and vital in terms of helping people walk forward together as opposed to thinking about the individual and their development. How do we walk forward together? How do we hold each other in these processes and disagree and still be able to hold each other while we walk forward? That’s a lot of the work that I’ve been doing.
Q: What’s next for you after ACTA?
Quetzal Flores: You know, I’m a musician. I’ve been a musician for many decades. I have dedicated a lot of time to doing this type of work with ACTA and other organizations. It’s time for me to start moving back towards an equilibrium with music and music production. There’s a lot of information that I was able to retrieve—a lot of theory and practice I was able to actually engage in with and because of ACTA—that I feel could be very helpful in the community and with other community organizations. I definitely want to be able to consult and get into spaces with other organizations and help them develop their cultural programming within, let’s say, a social justice board. So that’s what I have moving forward.
Next year, there’s a couple of albums coming out, one that I produced. I didn’t play a lick on it, but I produced it and I’m very proud of it because it’s with one of my heroes. His name is David Hidalgo and he is one of the guitar players and singers for Los Lobos. We’ve been threatening to work together for several decades now, and so finally last January, we got into the studio and we just kicked out a record. Ofelia Esparza is on it, and the members of the band Quetzal are in it, and I produced it. It’s about the reclamation, the maintenance and the loss of memory.
Quetzal’s contributions to ACTA have been profound, creating lasting impact through programs that intertwine traditional arts with justice and healing. As he transitions into the next phase of his journey, we thank him for his dedication and passion, and wish him luck on his future endeavors.