Oregon Culture Keepers Roster Menu

Casa de la Cultura Tlanese is a family-run cultural organization with a traveling dance troupe. Casa supports the expression of Mexican heritage in the greater Salem area through dance, music, and community cultural events. Margarito Sumoza, who came to the US with his wife and young children in 1995, founded the organization to help youth of Mexican heritage who have never been to Mexico to learn about, appreciate, and participate in their traditional Mexican culture. Although Sumoza’s daughter, Paola was involved in an elementary school folk dance program, there was no such opportunity for secondary school students. In response, he created Casa de la Cultura Tlanese. The word the Nahuatl (Aztecan) word for “dawn,” symbolizes the organization’s efforts to achieve cultural rebirth. Casa de la Cultura Tlanese launched in 2005 with the Sumoza family’s first dance presentation at Chemeketa Community College. Casa gradually expanded over the years and now offers classes in Mexican traditional dance, social dances, and music. Teachers include people from the local Mexican community, invited guests from Mexico, and the Sumoza family, including Paola’s husband who trained at the Escuela Nacional de la Danza Folklorica in Mexico. Casa’s dance groups perform regularly all over the state at schools as well as at private and community events. Their biggest annual event, and fundraiser, is the Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration held each year at a local school. They feature homemade traditional foods (beans, rice, tamales), sugar skulls, ofrendas (a community altar to honor ancestors), tapetes de aserrín (a carpet-like floor art created from colorful wood shavings), raffles, and family activities. Casa de la Cultura Tlanese hopes to continue expanding its programs and events to give their culture “a new dawn” in a land far from home.