Grupo Folklorico Izcalli: Annel Alvarez and Stacey Valdez

After Annel Alvarez had her son Adrian, she was going through a pretty dark time in her life, feeling a sense of losing her identity. She knew she needed to do something to pull her out of it, but also knew she couldn’t do it alone—so she called up an old friend with an idea: “let’s start a dance troupe!” A pretty simple idea on its face, but what turned out to have so much power to build community, celebrate Hispanic culture, and provide space for healing.