Chicano, Chicana, is an identity for Mexican Americans who have a non-Anglo self-image. Chicano was originally a classist and racist slur used toward low-income Mexicans that was reclaimed in the 1940s among youth who belonged to the Pachuco and Pachuca subculture. In the 1960s, Chicano was widely reclaimed in the building of a movement toward political empowerment, ethnic solidarity, and pride in being of indigenous descent. Chicano developed its own meaning separate from Mexican American identity. Youth in barrios rejected cultural assimilation into whiteness and embraced their own identity and worldview as a form of empowerment and resistance. The community forged an independent political and cultural movement, sometimes working alongside the Black power movement.
The Mission District, commonly known as The Mission, is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California. One of the oldest neighborhoods in San Francisco, the Mission District's name is derived from Mission San Francisco de Asís, built in 1776 by the Spanish. The Mission is historically one of the most notable centers of the city's Chicano/Mexican-American community.
A Mission burrito is a type of burrito that first became popular during the 1960s in the Mission District of San Francisco, California. It is distinguished from other burritos by its large size and inclusion of rice and other ingredients. A key method to the burritos' construction is to steam the wheat flour tortilla to increase its flexibility prior to adding the other ingredients, although that is not a requirement and burritos may be grilled instead. It has been referred to as one of three major styles of burritos in the United States, following the earlier, simple burrito consisting of beans, rice, and meat. It precedes the California burrito, which was developed in the 1980s in San Diego and contains carne asada, cheese and French-fried potatoes.
The Royal Chicano Air Force (RCAF) is a Sacramento, California-based art collective, founded in 1970 by Ricardo Favela, José Montoya and Esteban Villa. It was one of the "most important collective artist groups" in the Chicano art movement in California during the 1970s and the 1980s and continues to be influential into the 21st century.
José Antonio "Tony" Burciaga was an American Chicano artist, poet, and writer who explored issues of Chicano identity and American society.
Yolanda Margarita López was an American painter, printmaker, educator, and film producer. She was known for her Chicana feminist works focusing on the experiences of Mexican-American women, often challenging the ethnic stereotypes associated with them. Lopez was recognized for her series of paintings which re-imagined the image of the Virgen de Guadalupe. Her work is held in several public collections including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Galería de la Raza (GDLR) is a non-profit art gallery and artist collective founded in 1970, that serves the largely Chicano and Latino population of San Francisco's Mission District. GDLR mounts exhibitions, hosts poetry readings, workshops, and celebrations, sells works of art, and sponsors youth and artist-in-residence programs. Exhibitions at the Galería tend to feature the work of minority and developing country artists and concern issues of ethnic history, identity, and social justice.
Chicano poetry is a subgenre of Chicano literature that stems from the cultural consciousness developed in the Chicano Movement. Chicano poetry has its roots in the reclamation of Chicana/o as an identity of empowerment rather than denigration. As a literary field, Chicano poetry emerged in the 1960s and formed its own independent literary current and voice.
Ghada Amer is a contemporary artist, much of her work deals with issues of gender and sexuality. Her most notable body of work involves highly layered embroidered paintings of women's bodies referencing pornographic imagery.
Carmen Lomas Garza is an Chicana artist and illustrator. She is well known for her paintings, ofrendas and for her papel picado work inspired by her Mexican-American heritage. Her work is a part of the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the National Museum of Mexican Art, the San Jose Museum of Art, the Mexican Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Oakland Museum of California, among other institutions.
David Tineo is an American artist of Mexican descent whose works focus on cultural and identity issues particular to Mexican Americans who live in the U.S. Though internationally known, most of Tineo's life and career has been spent in Tucson, Arizona. He was diagnosed in 2004 with a macular degeneration that left him legally blind, but continues to paint and sculpt.
Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation was a traveling exhibit of Chicano/a artists which toured the United States from 1990 through 1993. CARA visited ten major cities and featured over 128 individual works by about 180 different Chicano/a artists. The show was also intended to visit Madrid and Mexico City. CARA was the first time a Chicano exhibit received major attention from the press and it was the first exhibit that collaborated between Chicanos and major museums in the U.S. The show was considered a "notable event in the development of Chicano art." Another unique feature of CARA was the "extensive planning" that attempted to be as inclusive as possible and which took place more than five years prior to the opening at Wight Art Gallery.
Melesio "Mel" Casas was an American artist, activist, writer and teacher who is best known for his paintings that address Chicano topics. He used visual statements, his sense of humor and love of puns to "address cultural stereotypes." His work has been collected by the San Antonio Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, as well as national and international private collectors. His most important series consists of 150+ large-scale paintings called "Humanscapes" that were painted between 1965 and 1989. Casas, who served as president of the Con Safo art group, was also well known as a writer and theorist. His "Brown Paper Report" is regarded as an important Chicano document. Casas emphasized the importance of "self-determination" and equality for Chicanos/as. He is regarded as one of the foundational figures of Chicano Art. Casas felt that once artists had a fair chance to exhibit in the United States, then they would become part of "Americana."
René Yañez was a Mexican-American painter, assemblage artist, performance artist, curator and community activist located in San Francisco, California. He was a well-known contributor to the arts of San Francisco and is a co-founder of Galería de la Raza, a non-profit community focused gallery that features Latino and Chicano artists and their allies. In the early 1970s, he was one of the first curators in the United States to introduce Mexico's Día de Muertos as a contemporary focus and an important cultural celebration.
Jean LaMarr is a Northern Paiute/Achomawi artist and activist from California. She creates murals, prints, dioramas, sculptures, and interactive installations. She is an enrolled member of the Susanville Indian Rancheria.
Gaspar Enriquez is an American artist known for creating photorealist portraits, primarily of people of Chicano heritage. He uses the airbrush technique in his paintings. Enriquez is also a sculptor and a jewelry maker who works in metal.
Border Crossing/Cruzando el Rio Bravo, or Border Crossing (Cruzando el Rio Bravo), is a sculpture by Luis Jiménez. It depicts a Mexican man carrying his wife and their baby on his shoulders as they cross the Rio Grande.
Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts (MCCLA) is an arts nonprofit that was founded in 1977, and is located at 2868 Mission Street in the Mission District in San Francisco, California. They provide art studio space, art classes, an art gallery, and a theater. Their graphics department is called Mission Grafica, and features at studio for printmaking and is known for the hand printed posters.
Rio Yañez is an American curator and artist. He is currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
John Joseph "Jos" Sances is an American artist, activist, writer, and community organizer, known for his printmaking, and tile murals/public art. He is the founder and director of Alliance Graphics. Sances is based in Berkeley, California.
