About us
Our Mission:
Our Vision:
For the last 16 years, our mission has been to foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of Hispanic/Latino culture in South Carolina by promoting artistic creation, cultural preservation, and community engagement. We support artists and cultural practitioners through programming that includes exhibitions, performances, workshops, and festivals. By creating accessible opportunities for cultural expression and dialogue, we aim to center Hispanic/Latino voices, celebrate heritage, preserve traditions and build bridges across communities.
The mission of Palmetto Luna is to foster an understanding of Hispanic/Latino culture by promoting artistic creation and providing opportunities for cultural expression for the community in South Carolina and create awareness of the Hispanic/Latino arts and culture in South Carolina.
Palmetto Luna has been developing Latino arts programming for the last 15 years with remarkable success. We are a small and vibrant organization and hold an excellent reputation with local agencies, artists and businesses willing to work together fostering Latino arts and culture.
We strongly believe collaborations make us all stronger. We have developed collaborative efforts with important community, educational and private organizations such as Columbia Museum of Art, USC, SC Arts Commission, Edventure Children's Museum, Riverbanks Zoo and Garden, ONE Columbia, National Association of Latino Arts and Culture, City of Columbia, as well community and faith-based organizations.
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Andrea is a proud descendant of the Maya Q’eqchi’ nation and honors her ancestral lands of Iximulew (Guatemala) in all that she does. Her favorite animal is the Quetzal, which symbolizes the freedom of movement regardless of colonial borders.
Growing up as a first generation American in rural South Carolina shaped her worldview and instilled a deep understanding that our collective struggles and our collective liberation are interconnected.
Andrea brings years of experience in communications, operations, and media justice. She has worked closely with Maya peoples, including community leaders and elders in both the diaspora and her ancestral homelands. She is deeply passionate about cultural preservation, language revitalization, and using social media to reconnect Latinx youth with ancestral knowledge.
As the Administrative Coordinator, Andrea supports Palmetto Luna’s mission through fundraising, communications, and community engagement. Her work is a way to give back to the community she loves and to help create a sense of belonging for Latinx artists in South Carolina.
Andrea can be reached directly at andrea@paluna.org
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Ivan Segura works as the Director of Multicultural Affairs at the SC Commission for Minority Affairs. The commission examines several issues including economics, education, health, criminal justice and human rights to provide constructive solutions and approaches to support the policy and socio-economic development of minority communities throughout the state of South Carolina. Mr. Segura has over twenty years of experience in community activism, arts advocacy and grassroots leadership development for Latinos in SC.
His volunteer advocacy work includes serving for the last ten tears as the Executive Director of Palmetto Luna Arts, an organization dedicated to making a positive impact in society by fostering Latino arts and culture. He serves on the ACLU National Board of Directors and as a member of the Advisory Council of Mexico’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs’ Institute of Mexicans Abroad.
Mr. Segura’s advocacy, arts and leadership activities place emphasis on the development of Latino youth and children as the future leaders of our community and nation. A firm believer in collaboration, he is constantly forging new collaborative efforts with other minority groups to foster an equitable community for all.
Mr. Segura is the sole recipient in South Carolina of the prestigious Ohtli Award. This is the highest recognition awarded by the Mexican Government to members of the community who have contributed in an exceptional manner to the development of the Mexican community living abroad. The name of the award is derived from the Nahuatl word for “path”, indicative of creating pathways for others.
Ivan can be reached directly at ivan@paluna.org
Our team
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Alejandro García-Lemos is a visual artist based in Columbia, South Carolina and New Orleans, Louisiana. He holds a MA in Latin American Studies from Florida International University in Miami, and a BA in Graphic Design from the School of Arts at the National University in Bogotá, Colombia. His work focuses on social issues, mostly on aspects of immigration, sexuality, biculturalism, religion and community. His works has been shown mostly in the South East. Alejandro is a former member of the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC), as well as the founder of Palmetto & LUNA a non-profit organization promoting Latino Arts and Cultures in South Carolina since 2007. Right now is he planning the artist in residency of Buihno, ArtLab in Messejana, Alentejo Portugal.
Alejandro’s is also a partner in Comunicar, Spanish Language Services. He is also a Certified Court Interpreter for the Spanish - English language pair.
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Maia Payne is the Associate Art Curator at the South Carolina State Museum, where she leads rotating art exhibitions and integrates artwork across the museum’s spaces. She holds dual master’s degrees in Arts Administration and Public Affairs from Indiana University Bloomington and a bachelor’s in Art History and Studio Art from Earlham College.
Maia brings experience in community engagement, curatorial planning, and nonprofit strategy through past roles with the Lotus Education & Arts Foundation and the City of Bloomington, IN. As a board member for Palmetto Luna Arts, she is committed to supporting Latinx artists and expanding arts access across South Carolina.
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Associate professor of Colonial Spanish American and 19th-century Latin American Literature at the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures (University of South Carolina).
She is the author of Blancura y otras ficciones raciales en los Andes colombianos del siglo XIX (2019), and Tiempos para rezar y tiempos para trabajar (2001). These works examine how race has been textually constructed, suggesting that the production of social difference through texts is an essential problem for both Andean and literary studies.
She is currently working on a book about disgust, exploring the fear of contamination and sickness that elites exhibit toward subaltern practices, drawing attention to its crucial role in naturalizing discourses of exclusion and discrimination.
Our Board of Directors
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Lucy Jaimes is a native of Bogotá, Colombia, where she studied drama at the Escuela Distrital de Teatro Luis Enrique Osorio. She now lives in Columbia, South Carolina, where she teaches multilingual learners at a public elementary school.
Lucy joined La Tropa, the theater group of Palmetto Luna Arts, 15 years ago. She is an active member and has participated in more than eight plays, not only as an actress but also as a collaborative writer. Her performances have been featured in events such as the Puppet Slam at Indie Grits, Syzygy (Jasper Project), and the Solar Eclipse Plays.
As a member of the Palmetto Luna Board of Directors, one of Lucy’s key accomplishments has been promoting Latino art in South Carolina schools. She has worked to involve Latino artists in the celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month and has helped foster their participation as artists-in-residence in various school events.
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Betsy Newman attended Antioch College, earned an MA in theater from the University of North Carolina and shortly thereafter moved to San Francisco where she was involved with several experimental theater companies. She moved to New York City in 1981 and worked as an independent filmmaker and taught video production at New York University and the Educational Video Center.
In 2001 she was hired by South Carolina ETV as a documentary filmmaker and web content developer. She has produced more than a dozen documentaries which have been broadcast nationally and have screened at numerous film festivals, museums, clubs and archives. Her films have won a Telly, a CINE Golden Eagle Award, a Southeast EMMY and five ADDY Awards. For about ten years she directed and performed with La Tropa, a theater company affiliated with Palmetto Luna. In 2016 she received the South Carolina Governor's Award in the Humanities.
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Jean was born in Brooklyn, New York. When she was 15 years old, her father accepted a job in Greenville, South Carolina. As a half-Puerto Rican teenager, Jean found attending Wade Hampton High School in the 1960s to be challenging, if not traumatic.
She attended college at the University of South Carolina, where she pursued costume design. Two of her undergraduate professors, Lyn Carroll (costume design) and Terry Bennett (scenic design), encouraged her to attend graduate school. After earning an MFA in Costume Design from the University of Virginia and having her work featured on the cover of Theatre Design & Technology magazine, she moved to New York City with her dog. Jean worked in numerous costume shops across the city, including at Juilliard, and contributed to several Woody Allen films designed by Santo Loquasto. She later became the wardrobe supervisor for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and toured extensively around the world with them. Notably, she designed Dudley Williams's costume for his final solo performance at City Center.
Jean has two sons. While they were growing up, she taught elementary school in California and occasionally took on theater projects. The family also lived in Mestre, Italy, for several years, where Jean taught art to Italian students at an English immersion school.
She returned to Columbia, South Carolina, in 2014 and has since designed numerous productions for Trustus Theatre, including Peter and the Starcatcher, Marie Antoinette, Appropriate, and Marly’s Christmas Carol, among others. She has also designed costumes for Opera at USC productions, including Sunday in the Park with George and Cunning Little Foxes.
Jean has always frequented museums and has recently yielded to a strong urge to paint.
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Britt was born in Columbia then went to Clemson where he earned a BA in Spanish and International Trade. After living several years in South America, he returned to Miami where he received a MA in Latin American and Caribbean Studies from Florida International University. He co-founded Comunicar Spanish language services and is a certified Court Interpreter. He has been on Palmetto Luna’s board since its inception.
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With over four decades of experience as a professional artist, Heidi Darr-Hope has achieved numerous accolades. She is most proud of receiving the South Carolina Governor’s Award in the Arts, which is the highest recognition for arts in the state. Her work has been exhibited and collected internationally, influenced by her passion for travel, her exploration of nighttime dreams, and her pursuit of tranquility amidst chaos. Her artworks reflect the universal search for meaning. For more information about her work and achievements, please visit www.darr-hope.com and view the South Carolina Educational Television series, Original SC.
As a resident artist at Stormwater Studios, she also serves on the board of Stormwater501c3, which aims to enhance the visual arts culture in Columbia, SC, and the greater Midlands region. The organization provides working studios for visual artists, gallery exhibition spaces, educational programs, outreach initiatives, and partnerships to ensure equitable access to the arts.