Mari Arreola is the Creative Director of the contemporary Latino Community of Spanglish Arte in Midtown Sacramento, CA. When the opportunity arose to create a boutique of her own, Arreola envisioned a retail space and art gallery which featured Latino, Chicano, and indigenous art and merchandise, a place for cultural fusion where local artists could thrive through their art.

Born in Hollister, CA where her family had settled after emigrating from a rural village, Maravation del Encinal, in the mountains of Guanajuato, Mexico, Arreola worked alongside her parents as a migrant farm worker picking anything from onions to cucumbers until the age of 17. She then went to San Francisco to pursue her higher education, the first woman in her extended family to do so. Arreola studied Merchandise Marketing at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising (FIDM). Arreola had a long stint at Nordstrom’s and other high-end retailers.

She decided to hit the books again at San Francisco State University with a unique double major in La Raza Studies and French language. While attending SFSU, her social consciousness was awakened through exposure to Latinos in education and community leadership. She immersed herself in student government and became a founding member of the SFSU MEChA, “Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan.” As a result, Arreola gained opportunities to travel throughout the US as well as to Guadalajara, Mexico for the NAFTA youth summit. She was also a Student Fellow at the Cesar E. Chavez Institute, an entity dedicated to policy research for social justice at SFSU.

Arreola went to Paris, France in order to finish her degree studying abroad at La Sorbonne. Although intending to break from all things Latino for a year, she ended up living with two chilangas girls from Mexico City and perfecting her Spanish while in France!

Returning to California, Arreola opened an interpreting agency which specialized in education, non-profits, and healthcare holding contracts with institutions such as the Santa Clara County Office of Education and UC Santa Cruz.

After getting married and starting a family, Arreola sold the interpreting agency in order to be a stay-at-home mom in Sacramento. Just as she started to become a little stir crazy, she found an outlet, volunteering at La Raza Galeria Posada in Sacramento. She was quickly offered a job by the organization and became the store manager.

Arreola was also sought out by a local clothing brand, Spanglish Tees. Her foresight and creativity brought about exposure and expansion for the brand, which included featured sports at the Latino Grammys as well as Fashion Rocks 2006.

Spanglish Arte ha llegado. Spanglish Arte has arrived.