{"id":124682,"date":"2025-08-06T22:07:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T22:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/124682\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T22:07:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T22:07:14","slug":"from-poverty-to-ph-d-veronica-alvarezs-journey-in-arts-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/124682\/","title":{"rendered":"From poverty to Ph.D.: Veronica Alvarez\u2019s journey in arts education"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Veronica Alvarez, executive director of Los Angeles-based Create CA.<\/p>\n

Credit: Courtesy of Veronica Alvarez <\/p>\n

Veronica Alvarez was 4 when her family came to the U.S. from Cotija in Michoac\u00e1n, Mexico, a small town famed for its cheese. Her father picked avocados amid the scorching heat in the San Fernando Valley, while her mother cleaned houses. One of nine children, she learned how to scrimp and save, how to work hard and how to dream big.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were so poor, I knew not to ask for much,\u201d said Alvarez, 52, now executive director of Los Angeles-based Create CA<\/a>, one of the state\u2019s leading arts education advocacy organizations. \u201cLooking back on those years now, I don\u2019t know how my parents did it. I have a white-color job and two sons, and I can barely afford it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her sunny disposition belies a steely resolve. She remembers well the sting of being an undocumented immigrant in the age of Gov. Pete Wilson, an era when some felt ashamed to even speak Spanish in public. She brings that fire to her arts education mission.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe access to the arts is a social justice issue,\u201d as she puts it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cUnfortunately, students that have the most need do not get equal access and opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her chops as a fighter, someone who doesn\u2019t give up on a cause, are part of what makes her special, arts advocates say.<\/p>\n

\u201cVeronica is an inspiring and dedicated arts education advocate and leader,\u201d said Merryl Goldberg, a veteran music and arts professor at Cal State San Marcos, who also serves on the Create CA board. \u201cHer commitment to equity and lifting student voices is front and center.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alvarez didn\u2019t become fluent in English until about the fourth grade, but she instinctively understood that education was the key to escaping poverty.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

Education was my path out of poverty. That was always my thing. I loved school.<\/p>\n

Veronica Alvarez<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The only one in her family to graduate from high school, for her, school was always a matter of sink or swim. She chose to dive deep. She paid her way through college working at Chuck E. Cheese, where she honed her chops in engaging children.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been pretty driven,\u201d said Alvarez, a mother of two boys with a doctorate in education and a master\u2019s in ancient history. \u201cEducation was my path out of poverty. That was always my thing. I loved school.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also loved to walk to the library. It conjured an oasis of calm amid her raucous household.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d come home with bags of books and sit in a corner to read and immerse myself in the world created by the author,\u201d she remembers. \u201cThat love of reading has lasted to this day.\u201d<\/p>\n

At first, she wanted to be an artist, but her fourth grade teacher said she lacked talent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved making art as a child,\u201d said Alvarez. \u201cBut I had always been taught to respect your elders. I didn\u2019t think it was my place to question it.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, she stopped trying to make art, channeling her drive into academics. Determined to graduate early, she took every AP class she could in high school and found her happy place in art history. A self-professed nerd, she always felt drawn to the world of books and ideas.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be able to sit and read and learn always seemed like a luxury to me,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a child, she was first entranced by Caravaggio and Bernini, and later became beguiled by the works of Frida Kahlo and Graciela Iturbide.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Making sure everyone can participate in the arts is what drives Veronica Alvarez, now head of Create CA.Courtesy of Veronica Alvarez<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved Bernini\u2019s \u2018David\u2019 because of his teeth biting his lip; he looked vulnerable and intense \u2014 along with the fact that he was mid-motion as he threw the rock at Goliath,\u201d she remembers. \u201cThe \u2018Barberini Faun\u2019 made me blush. A big piece of marble made me blush.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019s a full-fledged museum addict and a politics junkie with a passion for the place of women in antiquity, particularly Greek and Roman history. That expertise is what led her to the Getty Museum, where she helped launch the Getty Villa.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents would\u2019ve never dreamed of taking us to museums; that was not a place for us,\u201d said Alvarez, who later became the director of school and teacher programs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. \u201cMy passion has always been about access and equity, making a place for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

While at the Getty, she worked on an English learners program with migrant workers who often start work at 4 a.m., which means language classes happened at all hours of the day and night. It was a struggle to convey the meanings of words until she landed on using the visual realm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you learn a new language, you learn \u2018manzana\u2019 means apple, and then you see a picture of an apple,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI thought, why don\u2019t we use C\u00e9zanne\u2019s \u2018Still Life with Apples\u2019? And the conversations suddenly got so much more interesting. We got the students to really engage, centered around the artwork.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

That obsession with making sure everyone, not just the lucky few, can feel the transformative power of the arts is why she feels right at home at Create CA, which has been helping schools navigate the rules around Proposition 28, the state\u2019s arts education mandate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The organization has long fought for expanding access to arts education and helped advocate for arts educators and teaching artists in the classroom. One of the biggest challenges facing the organization now is making sure Prop. 28 funds are spent as they were intended, as well as pushing for more funding.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the passage of Prop. 28 and dedicated funds for arts education, people may think we have solved arts education,\u201d she said. \u201cHowever, while a billion dollars may sound like a lot of money, we have 6 million students in CA. When we parcel out what that means to individual school districts, especially in rural areas, sometimes the funds aren\u2019t sufficient to hire one art teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alvarez is known for her poise and her ability to keep the peace amid intense personalities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been struck by her powerfully calm demeanor and her openness to advocacy as a ground-up endeavor versus a top-down activity,\u201d said Goldberg. \u201cBeing an arts leader can be challenging in so much as there are many voices in the mix and they don\u2019t all agree.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alvarez has the polish to be diplomatic in a deeply divided world, partly because she puts the cause first.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe brings a worldly and positive energy to the discussions, and she strikes me as very much always in the problem-solving and equity-centered mode,\u201d said Letty Kraus, director of the California County Superintendents Statewide Arts Initiative. \u201cI also have experienced her as hands-on, participatory, and collegial in her approach.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Alvarez, art is the tether that connects us to our shared human heritage. It\u2019s a bridge to the past that all should be encouraged to cross.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHuman beings are unique,\u201d she said. \u201cOut of all the animals, we have the ability to create art, to connect across time and culture. That\u2019s why I love the arts so much. The craftsmanship of the human hand, the human eye, is so important to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

As an educator, the elusive nature of cognition \u2014 why the human mind absorbs some concepts while discarding others \u2014 also fascinates her.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, what you have to teach is the love of learning,\u201d she said. \u201cHow does the mind retain information? It\u2019s all about making connections. You learn something in history, and then you apply it in English. It\u2019s about providing the full context; that\u2019s how you retain information.\u201d<\/p>\n

If something truly moves us, she suggests, we may remember it forever. That\u2019s why the arts can push us to transcend boundaries and grasp universal truths.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cThe arts are essential to students\u2019 creativity,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen students can\u2019t access the traditional curriculum, the arts allow them to express themselves, their feelings, and tell their stories. The arts are essential to our well-being.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Veronica Alvarez, executive director of Los Angeles-based Create CA. Credit: Courtesy of Veronica Alvarez Veronica Alvarez was 4…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":124683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[648,1032,1033,171,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-124682","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-design","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114984101192996298","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}