El Paso’s Mexican American Cultural Center celebrated its first anniversary in the Downtown El Paso Arts District in March. The Primer Cumple drew a crowd with family-friendly games, gallery tours and a performance of “Las Mañanitas” by Harmony Schools Music Clubs and Mariachi Excelencia.

“We had it in our Black Box,” said MACC Director Rebecca Muñoz. “We had Loteria, pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey situation, but instead you could pin the heart on our Thunderbird logo. We had piñatas, free snacks, and hands-on activities that people could create. It was a family-fun event and we had a lot of people come that I’ve never seen before at an event. All of our spaces were activated and it was just very overwhelming.”

Since opening, the MACC has welcomed approximately 70,000 visitors and become a cultural center in Downtown El Paso.

The city launched the center as a signature project of the voter-approved 2012 Quality of Life Bond and designed it as a dedicated space for displaying, preserving and producing Mexican American culture.

“It’s been a year since we opened on March 22, 2025, and it’s been a really long project in the making, not just since the city undertook this project with the 2012 Quality of Life bond, but it’s been years of advocacy by the local Chicano-Chicana community, other community partners who’ve really been fighting for a space like this in the El Paso community. This is the first municipal center that takes on Mexican-American culture. It is a really special space.”

The MACC offers performance and gallery space, meeting rooms for workshops, a recording studio, a black box theater and more. Through its programming, the center celebrates the creativity and traditions of Borderland culture while prioritizing community engagement.

The opening of the estimated $15 million cultural center marked a turning point in a 13-year effort that included construction delays, cost increases and disputes over its location.

“I really feel like our grand opening was a big moment for us because we didn’t think we anticipated the response we got. We had such a massive turnout. We had an indigenous veterans group that performed the smudging ceremony for the opening, and that was important for us to have as well. I think really just seeing so many people in the building on the first day that we opened the doors to the public made it a reality. We had been working for a year without being in the building. We got into the building in December 2024.”

Looking ahead, Muñoz identified the center’s next milestone as its fifth anniversary, when staff can better measure its long-term impact.

“I feel like our next milestone is probably going to be our 5-year anniversary where we are able to see more kind of a long-term impact. One of the things I’m asking staff to do is to start collecting stories of people who come through our doors. We’re really trying to build our membership and have different types of memberships that people can join.”

Muñoz said she wants to deepen local engagement and expand programming by the next anniversary.

“We’re definitely going to be bringing on more programming and really hear back from the community. We are really hoping that we are doing right by them and they’re able to really see this as their own space.”