Musician Johnny Degollado: ‘Proud I brought’ conjunto music to Texas
From the early 1990s until 2019, Johnny ‘The Montopolis Kid’ Degollado organized the region’s largest conjunto festival on the Cinco De Mayo weekend.
It’s right there in the name: Fiesta Reclamada is reclaiming their cultural celebration in Austin. At the Cathedral in east Austin on Sunday, the arts festival will revamp the historic free, public Fiesta event that the city began celebrating in 1950. This year’s festivities will include international music, artisan vendors, creative activities for children and more. The event is spearheaded by Art Alliance Austin, an organization that supports artists, musicians and performers who make Austin a vibrant city by raising money and providing grants to creatives.
The organization that abbreviates its name to A3 was previously called the Texas Fine Arts Association. Founded around 1911, it is one of Austin’s oldest arts nonprofits. The group started an arts and crafts festival in 1950. In 1956, they changed the name to Fiesta. It would happen around the first weekend of May, and was held at Laguna Gloria for most of its lifespan.
“Fiesta was very popular. People collected the posters. They would close schools so that kids could go to Fiesta. It was one of the most important cultural events of the city for many years,” A3 Executive Director Laura Esparza told the Statesman.
“It may or may not have been associated with Cinco de Mayo, but it was close,” Esparza said. “Oddly enough, when they changed the name to Fiesta, it didn’t include Mexicans and Mexican Americans. For many years, they did not include Mexican and Mexican American artists, musicians or performers.”
(Note: This event is not the same as the long-running Fiesta Austin event at Fiesta Gardens.)
Old Austin mistook Indonesian culture for Mexican cultura
Esparza said when the event began, old attitudes from Austin’s segregation era lingered.
“They tried to make Fiesta more culturally fun in the 1950s and ’60s, so they chose exotic Indonesian cultures to feature, but never Mexican or Mexican Americans,” Esparza said. “It didn’t really occur to people that Fiesta was a tradition in a different culture than theirs, and if you were going to celebrate Fiesta, perhaps the people whose tradition it belongs to should be invited.”
In the 80’s, Fiesta turned into “Arts City Austin.” The arts festival initially took place downtown like the Pecan Street Festival, but eventually moved to the Palmer Events Center. The event shut down in 2020 due to Covid, and the organization went into hibernation for several years. Without a festival, there was no means of income for the organization, forcing them to eliminate staff.
In 2024, the organization was revived and has been operating as a local arts agency for nine months. Esparza came into the executive director position at ground zero, but saw an opportunity to build the organization up again. “We’re reviving Fiesta as Fiesta Reclamada because we’re reclaiming it as a true cultural event.”
Austin’s current budgetary crisis has forced the organization to restructure as a local arts agency.
Esparza wants to create “a significant foundation that supports the arts with grants.”
“I felt that I would be of service to the arts community if I started a local arts agency through A3 Austin and pointed it towards developing more civic infrastructure to sustain Austin’s arts ecosystem.”
Esparza previously worked for a successful arts agency in San Jose, California. “I know that (these agencies) work. This is one of the solutions that we can implement to help save Austin arts.”
A3 spotlights 18 Austin artists in new book ‘A Perfect Storm’
A new book “A Perfect Storm: Austin Arts Today” is also raising awareness and funds for the organization. It features portraits of 18 artists, musicians and performers including Jonathan “Chaka” Mahone, Lesly Reynaga and Patricia Vonne by Raj Rodriguez. Each of the artists wrote about their work and the challenges they face.
“It shows how much artists have to go through in order to produce what we enjoy and what makes Austin, Austin, something that I think we can take for granted,” Esparza said.
The new book will be released at Fiesta Reclamada on Sunday. Each copy will be sold for $40.
“Artists can’t afford to live here. We’re losing artists and are about to become a really boring city,” Esparza said. “I felt that someone needed to do something about the problem. We’re just beginning to see the tangible effects. A lot of organizations, especially those who offer what they do in our community for free, are struggling to survive.
“I decided to focus on artists who are innovative in expressing their culture. They are influenced by their traditions but aren’t in service of them and instead go beyond that,” Esparza said. “We wanted to focus on how we express who we are today no matter who we are. We’re looking at the freshest expression of what it means to be Latino, Black or anything else in Austin today.”
They use the slogan “Find Your Fiesta,” a call to find your individual expression by displaying artists who are taking innovative approaches to their own expression.
“We’re moving forward to create new expressions and traditions. We’re featuring artists that perhaps stray away from traditional Fiesta vibes but express who we are today. We encourage everyone to come find their own fiesta,” Esparza said.
Fiesta Reclamada
Fiesta Reclamada takes place Sunday, at the Cathedral. The event will feature live music by Javier Jara, who previously spearheaded the “Our Rhythm, Our Voices” music project, as well as Patricia Vonne and Tish Hinojosa. There will be art booths and vendors displaying crafts and jewelry by local artisans, and sips and bites will be available on site. Children’s creative activities will be provided by the Mexican American Culture Center on the lawn.
When: May 4, from noon to 6 p.m.
Where: The Cathedral, 2403 E. 16th Street
Info: a3austin.org