Chicago Cultural Alliance facts for kids

The Chicago Cultural Alliance is a consortium of community-based ethnic museums, cultural centers, and historical societies in the Chicago metropolitan area.

Incorporated in 2006, the mission of the Alliance is to "connect, promote, and support centers of cultural heritage for a more inclusive Chicago."

Background

The Alliance began through partnerships with ethnic and cultural organizations established at the Cultural Connections program at the Field Museum in The Center for Cultural Understanding and Change (CCUC). The Alliance brings together ethnically grounded organizations in order to build relationships amongst the ethnic communities in Chicago, as well as asserting their existence to the wider public. Kerstin Lane, the first Alliance Board President, described the reasoning behind the creation of the organization: "a lot of people in Chicago have no idea there are little jewels of ethnic museums all over the city. When these museums can go out and tell the city, state and others, 'We exist,' then each of them will be strengthened."

Core members

The Polish Museum of America was one of the founding members of the Chicago Cultural Alliance and continues to be one of its core members

The Core Members of the Chicago Cultural Alliance are:

• American Indian Center of Chicago
• Arab American Action Network
• Assyrian Cultural Foundation
• Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture
• Bronzeville Children's Museum
• Bronzeville Historical Society
• Casa Michoacan
• Chicago Japanese American Historical Society
• Chicago Scots/Illinois St. Andrew's Society
• Chinese-American Museum of Chicago
• DANK Haus German American Cultural Center
• Dominican-American Midwest Association
• Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago
• Filipino American Historical Society of Chicago
• Haitian American Museum of Chicago
• Indo-American Heritage Museum
• HANA Center
• Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center
• International Latino Cultural Center
• Irish American Heritage Center
• Japanese American Service Committee of Chicago
• Korean Cultural Center of Chicago
• Latvian Folk Art Museum
• Mitchell Museum of the American Indian
• Muslim American Leadership Alliance
• National Cambodian Heritage Museum and Killing Fields Memorial
• National Hellenic Museum
• National Indo-American Museum
• National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture
• OPEN Center for the Arts
• Polish Museum of America
• Puerto Rican Arts Alliance
• Salon for Bulgarian Culture and Spirit
• Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center
• South Side Community Art Center
• Swahili Institute of Chicago
• Swedish American Museum
• Trickster Art Gallery
• Turkish American Cultural Alliance
• Turkish American Society of Chicago
• Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art
• Ukrainian National Museum

Partner institutions

The Chicago Cultural Alliance began through partnerships with ethnic and cultural organizations established at the Cultural Connections program at the Field Museum.

The Partner Institutions of the Chicago Cultural Alliance are:

• Art WORKS Projects
• American Writers Museum
• Chicago History Museum
• Chicago Public Media
• Chicago Botanic Gardens
• Choose Chicago
• Crossing Borders Music
• Garfield Park Conservatory
• International Association for World Peace/The Peace School
• Intuit Center for Outsider Art
• Jane Addams Hull-House Museum
• Media Burn Archives
• National Public Housing Museum
• Newberry Library
• The Art Institute of Chicago
• The Field Museum
• TimeLine Theatre Company
• University of Illinois at Chicago Centers for Cultural Understanding

Activities

Advocacy and outreach

The advocacy and outreach work has included collaborating with several other Chicago-based arts and culture organizations in the Arts Power Chicago campaign to inform the 2011 Chicago mayoral candidates about the significant role that arts and culture plays in Chicago's neighborhoods and in its international image.