APUMEC Hall

What is their story?

The APUMEC Hall was named for the Portuguese fraternal organization, Associação Portuguesa União Madeirense do Estado da California, whose members greatly populated the Fruitvale district between the 1940’s and 60’s.

In the 1970’s, the APUMEC Hall was an important gathering place for the Chicano community in the Fruitvale. Here, organizers held dances and daytime events called “tardeadas’’ to raise money for various political causes, such as benefits for the United Farm Workers, an anniversary celebration of Centro Legal de la Raza, and the celebration of the release of Olga Talamante from prison in Argentina.

The APUMEC Hall is remembered as an important site

for political and cultural events of the Chicano activists

in the Fruitvale district. Eventually, the APUMEC hall

was sold and became unavailable as a location for concerts and benefits. The spirit of those events and the impact of the times at the APUMEC Hall are memorialized in artist Malaquias Montoya's posters.