EASTSIDE ARTS ALLIANCE
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Mission Statement
EastSide Arts Alliance (ESAA) is a collective of artists and community organizers of color who live and work in the San Antonio district of East Oakland. Founded in 1999 our mission is to unite art with activism to work for community empowerment and cultural development, and to build bridges between the disenfranchised, racially and ethnically divided communities that reside in our neighborhood and in the broader East Bay.
About This Cause
The EastSide Cultural Center is a multi-use theater, sound & visual arts studios, with 16 units of affordable housing and storefront spaces. ESAA made history by being one of the only grassroots organizations of color, which owns and operates an independent community cultural center, free and clear of debt. EastSide is committed to celebrating, strengthening, and growing Oakland’s cultural legacies. We focus our work on the Black, Indigenous/Raza, and South East Asian working-class communities of East Oakland. Through progressive programming and cultural organizing, EastSide Arts Alliance promotes community sustainability for future generations through self-determination, political and cultural awareness, and leadership development. The EastSide Cultural Center presents free youth art classes, cultural programming, public art projects, ongoing gallery exhibitions, community town halls, and the annual Malcolm X Jazz Arts Festival, currently in its 20th year. We work with numerous organizations and community groups to present hundreds of events every year. Additional programming includes a weekly open mic for poets; a theater residency program; and monthly documentary and feature film screenings contextualized by scholars and artists. Each year, EastSide reaches over 30,000 East Oakland residents through programming at the EastSide Cultural Center, the annual Malcolm X JazzArts festival and through other off-site venues. Through the arts, East Oakland residents are engaged and participating in the building and imagining of our own neighborhoods. ESAA is an organization dedicated to building deep connections between and among working class & low-income communities of color, communities whose histories, stories and cultures are actively erased from mainstream narratives. Since its founding, ESAA has maintained its deep commitment to amplifying the voices, political presence and artistic contributions of marginalized and oppressed communities.