About
Casa Barelas is a cultural hub and communal gathering space located on the ground of a historic Gas Station, on 4th street southwest and pacific avenue. It consists of an outdoor Gazebo/Performance Space and two restored, and converted buildings, one of which serves as the Casa Barelas office, the other of which hosts music and folkloric dance classes as well as exhibits and neighborhood meetings. All Casa Barelas programs are free and open to the public.
Our mission is to preserve, promote and celebrate Barelas’ diverse cultural heritage and foster communal wellbeing by instituting free, bilingual, multigenerational, community driven, cultural, educational and health programs.
No community thrives without cultural expression. We therefore continue to revive the musical, artistic and poetic traditions that long thrived in this historic neighborhood
— Ron Romero, Casa Barelas Founder
Barelas, Albuquerque.
Before there was an Albuquerque, there was Barelas, now a neighborhood south of downtown. Barelas, a former Spanish colony that dates to 1662, sits along the Rio Grande at what was once a strategic crossing point. The neighborhood’s Latin roots are very deep; the first homes were built here decades before California’s first mission was established in 1769 in San Diego. For much of the 20th century, Route 66 traffic motored along South 4th Street. Today, Barelas is a historic, low-income multigenerational, and high immigrant neighborhood.
