NMMA’s Yollocalli relocation supported by LGBTQ+ and minority construction team

After over a year of construction and nearly three years of planning, the National Museum of Mexican Art’s Yollocalli program opened its new location Oct. 3 at a previously abandoned firehouse in Little Village.

The plan’s completion isn’t the only stage that brought communities together—the team of project managers and construction workers included a number of LGBTQ+ and Latino people who appreciated the opportunity to work with others like them on a meaningful project.

Yollocalli Arts Reach, NMMA’s award-winning youth initiative, has been offering free arts and culture programming to teens and young adults for the past 28 years, with events ranging from parties to art galleries and markets. The name ‘Yollocalli” originates from Nahuatl as a combination of the words yolotl and kalli, meaning “heart” and “house,” respectively.

Renato Medeiros, a project manager from the Blackwood Group construction company, got involved with the project a few weeks before construction began in 2024. He said he felt excited about the vision for the firehouse—“an American Horror Story scenario,” he called it—with such bright colors and artistic potential. 

“We started construction there and everything was just great, the whole team was amazing,” he said. “And to know we were working with more LGBT people was even better. We feel free and we helped each other.” 

Coming from Brazil, Medeiros said he said he didn’t feel safe enough to come out at work in his home country. Blackwood assistant project manager Jayda Margin said the Yollocalli team experience was “very special” to her after growing up in a more conservative area of Louisiana. 

Joanna Ruiz from Architect of Record, one of the project managers, said this was the first time in her 18 years of experience she had worked alongside other openly LGBTQ+ professionals.

“It was like a breath of fresh air, especially on the contractor side,” she said. “There’s still not enough women, particularly from the LGBTQ+ community at all.”

Medeiros said there was a city requirement to use 26% minority subcontractors, but they surpassed that with 50% Latino subcontractors. Some were especially inspired by the mission and donated their time and materials in support of the project.

With attacks from the federal government directly targeting the Latino and queer communities, the project’s participants felt like they were an important piece in helping to uplift and connect them.

For Medeiros, that meant getting to combine both his identities on a project that would make a difference in the neighborhood. For Margin, it was the opportunity to bring something positive to those growing up in this tumultuous era.

“We’re a part of a project that’s actually creating a safe space for the younger generation,” Margin said. “This is hopefully a space where they can go and forget about the world and be themselves and do great things from that.”

After the groundbreaking last year, Ruiz said they began diving into documents, meeting with students, staff and community members and coming up with ways to bring each others’ ideas to life.

“[The students] wanted a place that felt like home but wasn’t home,” she said. “They felt like the art studios are like their messy, VIP area where they could be as creative and messy and bring art together. But at the same time, they also wanted some space to showcase their work and tie and connect with the community.”

Ruiz said the old location, a spot on the second floor at the Little Village Boys & Girls Club, wasn’t accessible to some children due to certain gang lines and turfs. The idea for a second location sprung out of the desire to provide a safe place for all children in the area. She said the entire project’s inception was the tragic death of Adam Toledo in Little Village in 2021.

“When we were young, they’d drop us off at the mall, and those malls are not a thing anymore, so where do these kids go to have a safe space and hang out?” Ruiz said. “I’m glad we got to take it to the finish line and have this space for the kids. It’s like we did a little part, and now that we’re done, they [can] enjoy it.”