Community-Based Arts Leadership

Community building through art is a lifelong passion of Griselda Suárez ’99. After ten years of leading the Arts Council for Long Beach (ArtsLB) as the executive director, she is pursuing arts advocacy in a groundbreaking new role. The City of Long Beach has tapped Suárez as the inaugural cultural affairs officer.

Suárez considers this role “an opportunity to ensure that the arts serve as a bridge for every community in our city.”

Among nearly 200 applicants from across the nation, Suárez was chosen for her expertise in civic arts, culture development, and relationship building within the Long Beach arts and culture community. At ArtsLB, Suárez spearheaded the distribution of over $10 million in grants, supported over 200 public art projects, and expanded arts education for thousands of local students each year.

Now Suárez will lead the City of Long Beach’s newly established Cultural Affairs Division, which is housed within Library Administration. Suárez is a longtime Long Beach resident and is excited to support equity-centered arts and culture in a new capacity. She also hopes to inspire the next generation of young artists and advocates, just as she was inspired as an undergraduate at Pitzer College.

Suárez’s transformative arts leadership began when she was pursuing a BA in Studio Art and Latin American Literature at Pitzer. Her education showed her how to find purpose in serving the collective good. Pitzer’s core value of social responsibility was foundational to her career.

“It taught me that leadership is a powerful vehicle for social justice and community building,” said Suárez. “As I step into this role for the City of Long Beach, I carry with me the belief that culture belongs to everyone. My time at Pitzer challenged me to think across boundaries and see the intersections between culture, policy, and community identity.”

After graduating from Pitzer, Suárez earned an MA and MFA in Creative Writing from the New College of California. She went on to become a published poet, a Lambda Literary Fellow, and a producer of landmark queer arts events. Since 2006, Suárez has taught Chicano and Latino studies at California State University, Long Beach, where she mentors students in cultural history, identity, and advocacy.