Diane Rodriguez, the theater maven and actress who had roles in blockbusters such as Terminator 2 and La Bamba, has been appointed to the National Council on the Arts (NCA) a year after being nominated for the position by President Barack Obama.
Rodriguez has been based in LA since the 1980s, but she grew up in San Jose, where she began her acting career with the famous Chicano theater troupe El Teatro Campesino. She says her time with the troupe, which began at the picket lines organized by Cesar Chavez, helped form her world view.
“It totally shaped my outlook on activism,” the associate artistic director of the Los Angeles-based Center Theatre Group told KQED on Thursday. “On community building, on the need to be in the middle of your community because they’re the ones that support you.”

“When I started working at Center Theatre Group in the mid-90s, I brought that activism here, you know, to open doors; at first for Latino artists and audiences, but [later] for artists in general. To really advocate for early career playwrights and people who weren’t able to get into these kinds of the big regional theaters that had the resources. That was all shaped at El Teatro.”
The NCA advises the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) on agency policies and programs. It reviews and makes recommendations to the chairman on applications for grants, funding guidelines and leadership initiatives.