This project, supported by an Incubation Grant from the NJ Council for the Humanities,  connects Raíces Cultural Center staff with a team of academic scholars, researchers, and cultural practitioners to undertake the planning process for a program and research initiative exploring the role and impact of gender in folkloric expressions and cultural traditions from Latin America, the Caribbean, and the diaspora. For this pilot project, Raíces Cultural Center will work with a select group of scholars who research the history and social impacts of a variety of cultural traditions, as well as cultural practitioners who perform, teach, preserve and share the traditions highlighted in this initiative. This project fulfills a growing need for scholarship and public programming exploring the impact of gender on cultural arts in a diversity of cultural and folkloric expressions which have historically been male dominated. By including an array of scholars, researchers, cultural practitioners, and teaching artists in this planning project, we can engage some of the female artists whose voices the project intends to amplify.