Rio Grande Sun: Moving Arts Co-Founder Named Among Most Influential Hispanics
Moving Arts Española Executive Director and co-founder Salvador Ruiz-Esquivel said in his wildest dreams he never imagined he’d receive his award as a 2022 top ten finalist for UniVisionaros Most Influential Hispanics.
“It was a total surprise and I’m still pinching myself,” he said.
When Ruiz-Esquivel received an email asking if he was interested in being considered for the UniVisionarios Most Influential Hispanic, he accepted. He believes a part of his success in making it to the top ten to be the shift in his life from working for profit to non-profit.
“The success of being a visionary doesn’t have to be economic, it can be moral and social. Economics is something that does not matter when you have the heart to dedicate yourself to what you are doing,” he said.
Even now, he said his win doesn’t feel real to him.
“The beauty of the recognition is that there was not a winner, and we all were celebrated equally,” he said.
Ruiz-Esquivel is grateful to have won the award because believes that his accomplishment will help children see that dreams can come true when one puts their heart and soul into it. He also feels this award is important to the future of his organization.
“It’s important for two things: to let the people know what we are capable of doing in this area, and ... hopefully people will notice us,” he said. “Being a non-profit organization that depends on grants and donations, it will help us create a new part of donors that understand the importance of teaching art to children and youth.”
Born in 1966 and raised in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, Ruiz-Esquivel owned a Mexican furniture imports and interior design firm in 1987. When he moved to Los Angeles in 1989, he took co-ownership of a business firm. After moving to Santa Fe in 1992, he switched career paths. He’s worked as an art teacher in several Española public schools where he taught dance and visual arts, and has helped with many projects in New Mexico, such as being a member of the founding team for La Tierra Montessori School of the Arts and Sciences, a state public charter school in 2011. It was in 2008 that he and his partner Democratic state Rep. Roger Montoya co-founded Moving Arts Española.
“It’s something I was taught - to do what your heart tells you. And it’s what I’ve been doing here for the last 15 years in the community. It’s for the love of art, for the love of the children, for the love of youth in the community,” he said.
Offering academic scholarships as well as a free meal program, Moving Arts Española is an organization that strives to “teach self-confidence” to local children and youth by educating them on fine arts such as circus arts, music, visual arts and a variety of different dance classes, including Folklorico which Ruiz-Esquivel practiced as a child. It hopes to reinstate a tutoring support to its programs soon, and plans to expand with a Digital Media Lab and Behavioral Health Center thanks to a $100,000 matching grant by the Thoma Foundation.
“It was born out of a necessity because we didn’t have these kinds of activities in the valley,” he said.
The most important thing about this program, according to Ruiz-Esquivel, is giving these children a voice and show them they are caPable of anything.