Serving as Acción Latina’s executive director for the past five years, Georgiana Hernandez revitalized the flagging organization, but now she is stepping away from her post to be succeeded by artist and educator Josué Rojas.
“I honestly couldn’t be prouder of what our staff has accomplished in the past few years,” said Hernandez, who plans to relocate to Madison, Wisconsin with her husband to be closer to their daughter, who is working on her doctorate in philosophy.
Under Hernandez’s guidance, Acción Latina flourished, making improvements in every area from office renovations that included the opening of the Juan R. Fuentes Gallery in late 2015 to the strengthening of El Tecolote, which won eight San Francisco Peninsula Press Club awards last October.
Among her chief accomplishments was stabilizing the organization, which was in serious financial trouble when she took the reins as executive director in May of 2012; the position had been vacant for a year and a half prior to Hernandez’s arrival.
“The organization was in debt and operating on a shoestring budget of about $120,000, with just a core group of very part-time staff coming together to publish El Tecolote every two weeks,” Hernandez said. “The board of directors had been trying to hold the organization together, but it was really tough. Over the past four to five years, all of us have worked hard to turn the situation around and ensure long-term organizational sustainability and vitality.”
Acción Latina’s budget grew threefold under Hernandez, the increase in funding allowing for the hiring more staff and the expansion of its cultural arts programming.
Born in El Salvador and raised in the Mission, Rojas cites the neighborhood’s vibrant arts scene as a major influence, in particular his experience as a muralist at Precita Eyes during his teenage years.
“I feel overjoyed to be able to serve my community as executive director of an organization that has been so important for so long,” said Rojas, who in addition to his career as an artist and community activist, has also worked as a college educator and journalist. “I am humbled to be able to serve in this capacity.”
A self-described Mission “lifer,” Rojas arrived in San Francisco when he was a year and a half, his family having fled from the Salvadoran Civil War.
“I understand the diasporic/refugee experience; I understand the newcomer experience,” Rojas said. “I also understand the American experience. It is a gift, that famed African-American author, W.E.B DuBois called “double consciousness,” which we as immigrants and children of immigrants have growing up in this country. The celebration of this power is what Acción Latina and El Tecolote have as a bilingual media venue and a bilingual-serving organization.”
Hernandez feels that Rojas is the perfect person for the job.
“For me, it was important that we find someone who has a strong sense of community, who shares our organization’s values and commitment to social justice, and who would be a facilitative leader,” Hernandez said. “We found all of this and more with Josue Rojas. Inventive, thoughtful, strategic, open to learning—Josué exhibits all of these important qualities in a leader, so it is with every confidence that I can now reach out to pass him the baton.”
As for Hernandez’s future, she hopes to “slow down” a bit and take time to “engage in various creative, physical and ethereal-spiritual pursuits.”
She also hopes to help her father in Mexico (who turns 90 this year) to set up a family foundation that distributes educational scholarships to kids in Mexico.
There are things that she will miss though—the people of Calle 24, the Latino Cultural District and the community she has engaged with over the past five years.
“More than anything else, I’m going to miss the day-to-day interactions with my staff,” she said.
And we will miss her too.