Across California, traditional artists sustain the living practices that connect us: music, dance, storytelling, and material arts rooted in care. Through their work, we see how culture heals, teaches, and transforms: a drumbeat restoring balance, a song bridging generations, a weaving that carries memory forward. The Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA) uplifts these artists and the communities they serve, supporting programs that embody care in action. This season, we invite you to join us in sustaining California’s traditional arts — where listening, transforming, and learning keep culture alive.
Listening as Care
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Through ACTA’s Sounds of California program, we listen to artists who define the San Joaquin Valley in their own words, rhythms, and languages. The project’s new vinyl album, Canciones del San Joaquín, gathers ten original song commissions that reflect the region’s heart — from Mixtec chilenas and mariachi huapangos to norteño ballads and trilingual hip-hop. Each piece carries a story of belonging, migration, and resilience.
Transforming as Care
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Inside correctional institutions across California, ACTA’s teaching artists in our Arts in Corrections program create spaces of trust, reflection, and transformation through traditional and community-based arts. From collective songwriting and gospel choir to drumming and storytelling, these classes reconnect participants with cultural identity and creative expression, opening pathways to healing and hope.
Learning as Care
ACTA’s Apprenticeship Program supports mentor artists and apprentices who come together in shared practice, passing on songs, techniques, and cultural traditions that sustain California’s living heritage. These relationships are rooted in time, trust, and mutual learning. Each apprenticeship represents a bridge between generations, demonstrating the care that keeps culture alive.
Across California, ACTA’s programs are guided by a foundational truth: culture is care.
When we listen, we honor the voices that shape our communities.
When we transform, we create space for healing and dignity.
When we learn, we carry traditions forward so they continue to live.
Your gift helps sustain this care — supporting artists who teach, sing, carve, drum, and tell the stories that connect us. Together, we can keep California’s traditional arts thriving for generations to come.
To celebrate this shared commitment, we’re offering a limited-edition Canciones del San Joaquín vinyl record as a gift of gratitude for contributions of $300 or more. Each record carries the sounds and stories of California’s San Joaquin Valley, a powerful reminder that culture is care.
Click the "Give Today" button on the right to make a tax-deductible contribution.
Or you can send a check to:
Alliance for California Traditional Arts
744 P Street, Suite 307
Fresno, CA 93721
Contact:
Amy Kitchener, Executive Director
akitch@actaonline.org
PHOTO CAPTIONS
Background: Los Fresnanitos, a Fresno-based collective of artists, educators, and cultural workers, perform their version of "La Bamba," commissioned for the Canciones del San Joaquín concert, which includes verses about local ecologies, vanishing rivers, and the laboring histories of the Valley. Photo: Diego Ballasteros/ACTA.
Listening as Care Image: Las Damas del Valle performing "Valle Firme" at the Canciones del San Joaquín concert, June 2025 -- one of ten new song commissions through ACTA's Sounds of California program.
Transforming as Care Image: Participants of the Danza Azteca and Afro-Cuban Drumming class culmination activities at California Health Care Facility on November 16, 2024. Photo: Peter Merts.
Learning as Care Image: 2024 ACTA Apprenticeship mentor in Hupa Basket Weaving, Deborah McConnell (right), and apprentice Natalie Scott (left), hold up their in-progress Jump Dance baskets. Photo courtesy of the artists.