In 2013, Mónica Rojas-Stewart received funding from the City of Seattle Department of Neighborhoods for a project she called “The Planning Stage: Afro-Latino Arts and Education Season.” Through this grant, Rojas brought together six leading cultural organizations representing different regions of Afro-Latin America in Washington State. This group met weekly to plan a year-long quantitative and qualitative community-engaged research through four community forums, interviews and surveys, reaching over 500 community members from various regions in the state of WA. The main purpose was to investigate what the community knew about Afro-Latinos and what they wanted to see implemented in an Afro-Latino arts education season. The leadership of this collective included Sharon Cronin and George Rodriguez from Grupo Bayano (Puerto Rico), Silvio Dos Reis from Fundación Internacional Capoeira Angola de Seattle (FICA-Seattle, Brazil), Iris Viveros and Max Sizemore from the Seattle Fandango Project (Mexico), Ricardo Güity and Yoelin Connor from Hagucha Garinagu (Raíces Garífuna, Honduras & Guatemala), Bobby Smith and Daniel Perez from Todo Folklore Cubano (Cuba) and Monica Rojas from De Cajón Project (Peru). They became the “Diaspora Negra Initiative”.

The massive response from the community at these community forums was an indication of the great need in Seattle for an Afrolatino space and programming. This inspired the idea to create a non-profit organization that would carry out and sustain programs that centered African descent Latino voices throughout the year. This work led to the incorporation of a non-profit organization 501(c)(3) we named the Movimiento Afrolatino Seattle (MÁS) .