Marcela “Xela” Garcia, she/her/ella

Executive Director

Marcela “Xela” Garcia

Marcela “Xela” Garcia is a Xicana artist, innovator, and cultural warrior whose work bridges arts, education, and public service. She serves as the Executive Director of Walker’s Point Center for the Arts in Milwaukee, WI, and in 2021 was elected to the Milwaukee Public Schools Board of Directors. A double graduate of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, she holds a Master of Arts in Business: Arts and Creative Enterprise Leadership and a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Chicanx/Latinx Studies.

Her work moves through Xicana futurism, cultural memory, and ancestral knowledge, using participatory practice and community‑rooted curation to imagine liberated futures. She creates artistic spaces where healing, resistance, and transformation are not only possible but actively practiced.

Under her leadership, WPCA has expanded its youth arts education programs, deepened partnerships with local schools, and increased opportunities for emerging and established BIPOC artists, guiding the organization through a period of strategic growth that has strengthened its role as a cultural anchor in Milwaukee’s South Side. Her tenure has emphasized cultural equity, community‑centered programming, and accessible arts education for young people across the city.

During her 2021–2025 term on the MPS Board, she advanced equity‑driven policies that centered multilingual learners and immigrant families, reflecting her deep commitment to youth empowerment and culturally responsive public education.

Xela’s leadership has been recognized nationally and statewide. She received BoardSource’s National Emerging Nonprofit Leader Award in 2012, was named one of Wisconsin’s Most Powerful Latinos in 2018, and was selected for the Milwaukee Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 Class of 2020. She is also a member of the 2020 Arts + Culture Leaders of Color Fellowship with Americans for the Arts, an Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Research Fellow finalist, and a participant in the 2025 Mentee Program with the Association of Arts Administration Educators.

Her civic and arts advocacy extends across multiple levels of government and national networks. She serves as a mayoral appointee to the City of Milwaukee Arts Board, a gubernatorial appointee to the Wisconsin Arts Board, and represents Wisconsin on the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies Board of Directors, where she currently serves as board secretary.

As co‑founder of Raíces Revolucionarias, an arts‑based collective of Latinx mujerxs, Xela works to disrupt cultural displacement and build intentional partnerships that unify, ignite, and empower Milwaukee’s barrios. With experience spanning arts administration, education, and philanthropy, she embodies transformative, purpose‑driven leadership rooted in cultural equity, community power, and creative liberation.