Ginger Leopoldo, Executive Director, CIRCA PINTIG

By: Ryan Tejero

 

The Center for Immigrant Resources and Community Arts – Pintig, or CIRCA-Pintig (CP) for short, is a 32-year Chicago-based organization whose mission is to engage community members in addressing critical needs of immigrant communities in creative, participatory, and empowering ways. As its name underscores, CP’s mission is two-pronged. The Immigrant Resources (IR) focus is on providing much needed resources and services as well as access to these through grassroots activities and campaigns primarily for, from, and by immigrant communities. The Community Arts (CA) focus is on developing, nurturing, and popularizing community arts aesthetic and pedagogy that speak of the immigrant experience within the changing multicultural American landscape as well as celebrating the histories and artistic legacies of America’s diverse cultural terrain through participatory art creation. Pintig is a Filipino term for “heartbeat” or “pulse”. CP’s almost three-decade practice and tradition were borne out of and honed through Pintig’s active cultural work since 1991. CP’s work may be summed up in three foundational principles– educate-organize-mobilize (E-O-M).

CIRCA-Pintig believes in the power of the arts for engaging community members in building and nurturing thriving communities that are fully empowered to determine their collective destinies. Its vision of a just and humane society rests upon its core belief that our communities can play a significant role and can contribute meaningfully towards upholding human rights for all and uplifting the human ideals that value life, freedom, justice, and nurture individual human potentials to the fullest.

The group’s mission is deeply rooted to educate, mobilize, and organize community members, primarily immigrants and their families, through community arts-based and community-centered intergenerational programs and services. Ginger Leopoldo is currently the Executive Director of CIRCAPintig.

Ginger is an educator, actor, director, and community organizer. She is a proud founding member of Pintig Cultural Group and the founding Artistic Director of the Center for Immigrant Resources and Community Arts (CIRCA). Her work includes performing, directing, producing, and facilitating theatre productions and workshops of all ages. Ginger has helped to create a youth heritage curriculum with techniques that utilize a basic integrated theatre arts workshop methodology as well as a facilitator of Activism & Art workshops for college students. She received her B.A. and M.A. in theater from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Ginger has collaborated with other theatre organizations around Chicago such as Old-World Theatre Company and A-Squared Theatre Workshop. With over 20 years of experience as an educator and literacy coach for public school teachers through a nonprofit that engages at-risk youth with arts-based literacy programs, in addition, she has been the Program Director for America’s Children’s Museum on Wheels: StoryBus, delivering an interactive hands-on literacy experience for young learners throughout Chicago. Most recently she has taught ESL to students in China and is an adjunct lecturer with the ESL program at the University of the Potomac. In 2020, she led CIRCA Pintig to adjust to global virtual events and productions for the community. She is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in organizational and educational leadership.

Under her leadership, CIRCA-Pintig has productively collaborated with Chicago Nightingales, Philippine American Cultural Foundation, Filipino American Historical Society of Chicago, Rizal Center, Sinag Artist Collective, Chicago Danzetheatre Ensemble, and Chicago Piyesta Pinoy.

Born in Quezon City, Philippines, Ginger migrated to Chicago at age 5 in 1979. Ginger is married to Larry Leopoldo, who is self-employed in construction and catering. Their children are Ube (eldest son is a digital artist), Basilio (studying at U of I in Springfield, Computer Science), and Olive (first year at UIUC majoring in Economics).

Ginger’s message to the community is “I just ask that families get involved. We have many groups in our community who are developing and providing wonderful community-building activities and events throughout the year. I encourage all our Fil-Am families to take part in cultural and artistic events that can involve us intergenerationally. If we aren’t sharing our stories with one another, who will? Let’s value also these quotes from our national hero, Jose Rizal: The Youth is our hope for the future; He who does not know how to look back at where he came from will never get to his destination, and There can be no tyrants where there are no slaves.”

For more information about CIRCA-Pintig, and to learn more about their projects, please reach out to Ginger Leopoldo at ginger@ circapintig.org or visit http:// www.circapintig.org.

Circa Pintig Cultural Group’s production of the musical Bells of Balangiga

Original cast and crew for the production of “America is in the Heart” written and directed by Chris Millado (1992), photo credit: Ramon Mascarenas