To the Board of The Nuyorican Poets Café:

 This is a call to action to remove Caridad “La Bruja” De La Luz from her position as current Executive Director of The Nuyorican Poets Café. In barely two years, the Nuyorican has witnessed an historic near 100% employee turnover, with quintessential staff, hosts, and partners parting ways with the Café as a direct result of her inefficient and unethical leadership. This is an abbreviated collection of grievances from past employees, both who have been terminated and who have resigned. The community is calling upon the Board enforce the her swift termination of Caridad “La Bruja” De La Luz’s position as Executive Director of The Nuyorican Poets Café and thus put an end to the hostile and unsafe work environment, biased managing, and administrative incompetence that she has cultivated there.

 Caridad “La Bruja” De La Luz fosters a hostile and unsafe work environment that enables racism, ableism, and elitism. Workers are constantly threatened with biased termination and a replacement-oriented attitude, as employees with 10+ years of experience at The Nuyorican are dismissed or pushed away for unjustified reasons. Nearly every time she fires workers it is for purely emotional and egotistical reasons, usually in direct contest with the business’ wellbeing. The Office Staff, despite endless complaints, is prioritized and unfairly advantaged, while the current Executive Director lacks protections for the rest of the staff – she claims others must file police reports to ban customers from the Café, yet enjoys the right to refuse service to those she chooses without filling out such paperwork herself. Countless members of the community have spoken out against her boyfriend, for example, who harrasses women as he lounges about the Café freely. There has been, for two years, no established or accessible Human Resources Department; when questioned, the Executive Director declared she was the person to come to with such complaints, a clear conflict of interest. She has repeatedly attempted to blacklist members of the community who have come out against her, despite efforts against her continued employment being in support of the Café. Positions are then filled by personal friends of Caridad “La Bruja” De La Luz and/or those who she believes will not or are not in a position to speak out against her. In acts of blatantly biased management, she has employed many members of her own family and paid them higher rates than experienced personnel. If this does not prove her administrative incompetence, the current Executive Director has caused a huge loss of profit and general decline in numbers, and still rarely pays her employees on-time, if at all.

 This is Project Save The Nuyorican, calling for the immediate termination of Caridad “La Bruja” De La Luz from her position as Executive Director of The Nuyorican Poets Café.