Anahuak Youth Sports Association

1550 N. San Fernando Rd.

Los Angeles 90065

July 14, 2006

Dear Mayor Villaraigosa and Council members

Our 1,500 families ask that you do everything within your power to prevent the loss of the Southwest Museum in northeast Los Angeles. Please refuse to give permission to the Autry Museum to relocate the Southwest Museum in Griffith Park until they make a commitment to Lummis’ historical museum sites in Highland Park.

Our families are appalled that the Autry has shown such disregard and disdain for our community that they refuse to share the one billion dollar irreplaceable collection of artifacts that they have obtained through merger. The Southwest Museum shows only 1% of that collection and the Casa de Adobe less than that.

The Autry has repeatedly ignored the 75 organizations which are part of the Friends of the Southwest Museum Coalition in their attempt to assist in a successful revival of the Southwest Museum. We are one of those organizations and have communicated, in every way we can think of, what the loss of this museum would mean to us and to the entire city of Los Angeles. The Autry in response has ignored our helpful suggestions and has deemed our community unworthy of having a museum.

Unlike the Griffith Park location this museum site is surrounded by a neighborhood of eager volunteers who have always been an integral part of the Southwest Museum and Anahuak families have happily participated. We served food to Indian artists at the Intertribal Marketplace as well as provided food and drink for the Four hundred Years of Pueblo Pottery Show Opening festivities. Last month our youth participated in a neighborhood clean up as well as planted 125 native plants and 4 trees to enhance the Southwest Museums entrance landscape.

The removal of the Southwest Museum will have a devastating affect on our young people. Our youth have become Southwest Museum docents through the LAUSD Arroyo Seco Museum Magnet School located 2 blocks from the museum. Their confidence, interest in staying in school and their academic achievement levels have soared through this program.

Teachers in the surrounding parochial and public schools have used the Southwest museum as a major teaching tool and inspiration for 90+ years. The entire teaching community is shocked by Autry’s unwillingness to seek an endowment to repair or to continue the Southwest Museum at its historical location which is now so accessible to teachers with the new Southwest Museum Gold Line Station.

Our families depend on public transportation and the removal of all of the artifacts to a location out of this area will prevent our families from visiting their cultural heritage.

We call upon you as our elected officials to prevent such poor decision making from becoming a reality. We do not need another “cultural center” we already have the LA River Cultural Center and the Ramona Hall Cultural Center within blocks of the Southwest Museum. We need a public destination museum that is the center of culture, history and learning. We need the Southwest Museum to remain and flourish with such additions as a restaurant, enhanced gallery space, and educational learning experiences. We need the Autry to use some of the 100 million dollar endowment that they are seeking to build a new Southwest Museum in our Griffith Park to be used for the historical Southwest Museum so that it can continue to be the heart of downtown Los Angeles.

Sincerely,

Mr. Raul Macias

President and Founder of Anahuak Youth Sports Association and

The Anahuak Academy