Five Questions With: Marianne Ruggiero

"Grant writing is painstaking, but having faith in the project and its benefits for the targeted community help spur me forward."

Marianne Ruggiero is an events and project planner for the Rhode Island Latino Arts, a position she’s held since August. She has more than 15 years’ experience writing grants and 20 years’ experience in promotional and creative writing for arts organizations. Here she discusses the nonprofit’s fundraising strategy and busy calendar.

PBN: What portion of your time is spent on funds development at RI Latino Arts and how integral is that to events and project planning?
RUGGIERO:
I spend about 20 hours a week planning programs, developing them with community partners, matching programs with possible funding sources, writing grant proposals. I find that the projects and programs work themselves into my thoughts at all hours of the day, though. I think this is the nature of arts programming. Rhode Island Latino Arts Executive Director Marta V. Martínez and I meet regularly for brainstorming meetings.
Grant writing is painstaking, but having faith in the project and its benefits for the targeted community help spur me forward. I believe in the merit of all of RILA’s projects and wish every single one of them could get funded.
The importance of funds development for events and project planning can’t be overstressed. This is by and large how RILA operates. To make these important cultural programs happen in the community, we need to spend a great deal of time and effort on fund raising. It’s a competitive world out there with many non-profit organizations competing for the same money, so we can’t always take it as a given that we will get funded. We just need to do our best to develop great projects for the community we serve, and hope that potential funders will be receptive.

PBN: In two weeks, May is Latino Books Month. What celebrations and activities are you planning?
RUGGIERO:
RILA, in partnership with Pawtucket Public Library, coordinates and celebrates May Latino Books Month RI by creating a ballot that lists 16 book titles for children and young adults by Latino authors who, in some cases, doubled as the book’s illustrator. Many of the selected books are recipients of the Pura Belpré medal, which is presented annually to a Latino or Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays the Latino cultural experience in a work of literature for children or youth. Among the seven nationally selected panelists on the Pura Belpré committee that chooses the winners is Maria Cotto, RILA committee member and Bilingual Children’s librarian at the Pawtucket Public Library.
And although the authors are Latino, the books are in English.
During May, children and young people are invited to read three or more selected titles; they then vote for their favorite at their school or local library. On May 30, Pawtucket Public Library will announce the winner, and there will be some special activities for kids and families as well. You can find out more about the event and download a ballot here: www.rilatinoarts.org.
Also, all library patrons are urged to contact us if a local library or school is not participating, at info@rilatinoarts.org. Everyone can participate.

PBN: What is your biggest literacy project and how will you make it happen?
RUGGIERO:
Our biggest project to date is “Great Latino Authors & Artists.” We hope to bring five acclaimed Latino authors and artists of books for children and young people to Rhode Island next year in conjunction with Latino Books Month Rhode Island. They would visit selected schools that have high Latino student populations; the students will have read their books and explored the author’s cultural background preceding the visit.
The authors will also engage in a panel discussion at Pawtucket Public Library and preside over the announcement of the winner of participants’ “Favorite Latino Book.” We chose the authors, for the most part, from among recent Pura Belpré winners. Most were born here, and are of Cuban, Mexican, and Puerto Rican parentage. One of the five is Providence-based Christina Rodríguez, a Rhode Island School of Design alumna of Mexican heritage who has illustrated a number of wonderful books for a Texas-based publisher, Piñata Books. The other four authors are Matt de la Peña, Duncan Tonatiuh, Eric Velasquez, and Meg Medina. We chose them not only because they are medalists, but also because we think the themes in their books, ranging from identity to overcoming adversity to coping with bullying, will resonate with Latino students.
We intend to make the project happen by writing the best possible grant proposals, hoping that funders will value it in the same way as we do. It helps that the schools, library, and all five writers support the project. You look at recent studies done about the benefits of positive role models for Latino kids. And then when teachers tell us that their students have no books at all home or dream of meeting one of the Latino authors whose books they love: well, that’s all tremendous motivation for us to get this project off the ground.

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PBN: How does the Latino oral history project reflect arts learning?
RUGGIERO:
Marta Martinez started the Nuestras Raíces: The Latino Oral History Project of RI (The Spanish word Raíces means “Roots”) in 1991 as a way for our state’s Latino immigrants, particularly its pioneers, to tell their stories.
She carried out in-depth interviews with people like Roberto González, the first Latino judge in Rhode Island; Tessie Salabert, member of one of the first Cuban refugee families in the state; the late Pedro Cano, one of the very first Colombian immigrants; and Josefina “Fefa” Rosario, owner of the first Latino market in Rhode Island and a community celebrity in her own right.
Marta worked with Providence Children’s Museum to recreate “Fefa’s Market” in the “Coming to America” time tunnel, and now dozens of kids of all races daily play at “grocery shopping” in this little nook of Latino community history. For more information about the project, visit nuestrasraicesri.org.
Last year, Marta published her oral histories in a book entitled “Latino History in Rhode Island: Nuestras Raíces.” She also lectures extensively on the subject in local schools, universities, and libraries.
RILA is now working on moving the Latino Oral History Project into the artistic dimension through an unusual project titled Café Recuerdos. This traveling café of memories will recall the canopied carts of the type vendors used to sell their wares in bygone times. The difference is that the painted portraits of Latino immigrants – many are the same who told their compelling stories to Marta decades ago – will adorn the very cans of coffee fitted into the cart’s wall panels; their stories will also be heard through an integrated audio component.
Why coffee? It was one of the things the immigrants confessed missing most about their homeland. Not only coffee’s aroma, but the memories it evoked, of a beloved, unhurried ritual shared with family and friends. With a full itinerary, starting this August, which will take it to schools, libraries, community and senior centers throughout South Providence, Café Recuerdos will be viewed by a broad multigenerational audience, and also gathering new oral histories along the way.

PBN: You actively promote certain festivals related to your cause from July through September. Which of these do members most strongly support?
RUGGIERO:
It’s hard to say which of the many cultural festivals are most strongly supported – there is always a huge turnout at these celebrations – but the Dominican Festival and Parade might have that distinction, by virtue of representing our state’s most populous Latino group.
The dates and locations of these festivals change from year to year, so RILA’s website can always be counted on as a place for folks to get updated about all the details. We go to as many festivals as possible, take pictures of traditional music, dance, and processions, and post them to our website. It’s great when local Latino cultural organizations schedule their festivals to reach the general public, such as on a WaterFire night, because thousands of non-Latinos get the opportunity to see the truly spectacular procession and dances performed by Latin Americans in Rhode Island; but the most wonderful thing about these festivals – whether Dominican, Puerto Rican, Colombian, or Guatemalan – is that they unite communities and reconnect Latinos of all ages to their heritage. The immigration experience is often a bittersweet one; the Latino gains economic security but loses ties with his or her culture. Festival days are a wonderful way to reaffirm cultural roots, and RILA is proud to promote these celebrations, and to be an ongoing “bridge” in the Latino community. For more information about Latino festivals: www.rilatinoarts.org.

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