Editor’s note: Amigos805 welcomes guest columns, letters to the editor and other submissions from our readers. All opinions expressed in submitted material are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the viewpoint of Amigos805.
Armando Vazquez.
By Armando Vazquez / Guest contributor
This is the latest revision to this article that I wrote more than ten years ago. The article got tremendous response from unexpected sources like Wikipedia, LULAC national. The article, even received some academic attention when it was first published by our dear friends at Amigos805, the electronic newsletter owned and operated by our dear friend Frank Moraga. I wanted to share this recently revised, updated, and expanded article with updated and new information, with all of friends, both old new, to remind all of that Chicano art movement is fluid, incredibly creative, and ever changing. I guess I will be revising and adding on to this article until I die or it becomes a book, y adelante
I wrote this article some years ago in response to the suffocating strangle hold that the Euro-centric philosophy, esthetic and elitists mindset has in its intransigent and unyielding domination of the fine art and cultural discussion in this country. And while, some outsiders, have made some very small and important inroads (think hip-hop, Chicana(o) Art), into the Eurocentric monolith in recent years, events like this year’s almost all white Grammy and Oscar Award nomination lists, the racist full court assault on rap music, the banning of books by people of color, the evil hypocritical acts by some MAGA politicians to eliminate Chicano(a) and /Black Studies Program that would in effect attempt to wipe out all of our history. This purge would attempt to minimize or completely white wash our rich arts and culturally legacy and contribution to the magnificent tapestry of this nation. This systemic and ongoing assault on our arts and culture recently violently jerked me by the back of neck hairs to action. I was reminded again, for the zillionth time, that the fight for Chicano art and cultural inclusion, acceptance and parity in this country is far from over. In fact, it has just begun!
Additional this latest revision of my primer on the Chicana(o) Art Movimiento, is in honor of our recently laid to rest artists and cultural warriors, Michele Serros, Ben Saiz, Gilbert “Magu” Lujan, Frank Martinez, Emigdio Vasquez, Richard Duardo, Barbara Salinas-Norman, Xavier “Big X” Montes, Francisco Magdaleno, Felipe Flores, Felix Perez Lil Mickey de KC, any others, PIR and your art and cultural contributions and spirits and your stories and contributions will always live on!
SETTING THE STAGE:
At the turn of the twentieth century, art in the Americas made a radical departure from the yoke and pervasive influences of Europe. In fact, Europe and the entire Western World were experiencing tremendous social upheaval. The old order was being challenged on all fronts; the First World War loomed over the horizon. All of the political “isms” were on the tips of tongues of the world’s intellectual political and social theorists and revolucionarios, ready to spew fire and revolution to the world. The art world was being transformed into a revolutionary maelstrom. The Dadaist and the Surrealist would create chaos in the art world. As always, the Americas lagged behind the Europeans in breaking away from the classical chains of western art homogeneity.
The global whirlwind and upheaval that smashed much of the old order was especially profound in the art world. Art in the United States for the first time became original, fresh and uniquely American. With the advent of the industrial revolution and the demonstrative strength (by brute force) of the American capitalist system to the rest of the Western World, all sectors of American life were buoyed with creativity, originality, legitimacy and power. American exceptionalism, except in the art world.
The birth of modern American Art was, however, a closed shop: racist, aloof, pretentious and elitist. American art was an Anglo-Saxon, male- dominated bastion. It would remain so for another 50 years. It was not until the early 1950’s that Chicanos, Jews, Blacks, Native Americans, and women by their singular sheer artistic genius and courage, were able to penetrate this monolith known as “American art and culture”. But of course, it was not nearly enough. Success for the minorities was singular and isolated; minority groups were completely excluded from full participation in the American art scene. It was not until the 1960’s that the wall of exclusion and segregation began to slowly crumble under the relentless assault being waged by Chicanos, blacks, and other disenfranchised political, social justice and art movimiento forces against the traditional “lily white” American art citadel.
MI BAUTISMO:
In 1967 my older brother, the last of the silent stoic warriors for Uncle Sam, went off to war in a distant land called Vietnam. It was the year that my idol, Muhammad Ali, was stripped of his title for refusing to go to war in Viet Nam. Ali’s refusal, was, as he put it, “I have nothing against the people of Viet Nam; they have never called me nigger.” The Johnson administration, in political free fall and moral decay, escalated the Vietnamese war effort. And in the United States, internal war in the form of urban riots raged in over 100 cities throughout the nation. Leading the war protesters were many young Chicanos, Blacks, Native Americans and other minority groups that opposed the war and the discrimination that they faced at home. In 1967 I came to understand that the war to be waged was on the soil of this country.
In 1968 I registered for the draft, and was prepared to go to jail as a conscientious objector, no longer the stoic, ignorant, and apolitical warrior for Uncle Sam. I would not fight “their” war. That was the same year that I turned my back on a dream. I knew that year that I could never be a professional baseball player: simply put, I was not talented enough to play at the pro level. I replaced my baseball gear with pencils, brushes and canvas, I wanted to document and create in this fascinating period of the Sixties, and I was intoxicated by the revolutionary Chicano Movimiento. I became a Chicano Movimiento writer and artist that year.
NUESTRO CUENTO:
Two historic events in the Chicano Movimiento helped shape and define Chicano art and the direction that the Chicano art and cultural movement would follow.
El Plan de Santa Barbara, was conceptualized, drafted and written by students in 1968 at the University of California at Santa Barbara. El Plan was a Chicano liberation manifesto, a blue print for educational, cultural and socio-economic change for the Chicano. We proclaimed to the world that we as Chicanos were demanding and would assert and fight for our freedom to forge our own cultural and artistic identity.
In 1965, Cesar Chavez and Luis Valdez would form their historic collaboration and combine guerilla teatro with political satire and protest. The United Farm Workers and El Teatro Campesino created a brilliant and scathing artistic backdrop to the UFW’s national grape boycott campaign. It was sheer genius: political theater on the often hostile and deadly grape fields of Califas. In short order the entire nation became aware of the farm workers struggle in the fields of Delano, California. The campesinos and students joined forces and created a historic synergy that fueled the Chicano movimiento and in the process liberated countless artist, scholars, and intellectuals in the Southwest to move forward toward a Chicano aesthetic that was new and exciting.
CHICANO ART POR TODO CALIFAS:
in 1968, in the city of Sacramento, a group of artists, poets and movimiento scholars formed the Royal Chicano Air Force; originally known as the Rebel Chicano Art Front. The founders of the Royal Chicano Air Force, were two California State University, Sacramento, art professors Jose Montoya, Esteban Villa, and Ricardo Favela, an art student. Satirists and gifted social commentators, they popularized two art slogans, “la locura lo cura y aqui estamos y no nos vamos”. These gifted radical artists combined poetry, prose and visual arts in their works that were bold and revolutionary, and grassroots in its orientation. The Royal Chicanos Air Force goal was to create political conscience, promote the art and education in the barrio, and explore our history and culture as Chicanos.
LOS FOUR Y ASCO IN EAST LOS:
In Los Angeles there were two seminal art groups that would forge a new Chicano art sensibility, the first was Los Four, which included the late Carlos Almaraz, Gilbert (Magu) Lujan, Roberto (Beto) de la Rocha and Frank Romero; later the collective would include Judithe Hernandez and John Valadez. Los Four were the intellectual vanguard of the Chicano art movement of the early 1970’s.
It is safe to say that this grouping of artists, known collectively as Los Four, “legitimized” Chicano art in the Anglo-American art world and inspired the younger Chicanada to forge ahead with a school of art that would come to be known as Chicano Art. Today, Frank Romero, Carlos Almaraz, Gilbert Lujan, Judithe Hernández, and John Valadez represent a group of Chicano artists that have obtained international respect and are admired by producing original and exceptional bodies of work throughout their artistic careers. Los Four opened the commercial door to all in the Chicano art world.
The art group Asco, was composed of Gronk, Willie Herron, Patssi Valdez and Harry Gamboa, to be joined intermittently by Daniel J. Martinez and Diane Gamboa. Asco members were street punks, involved in everything from street actos, punk music performances, and various mural works that today are considered master works of the golden age of the Chicano Mural period. Asco was a young rebel art posse bent on taking over the streets for the sake of art, anarchy y asco. The group Asco also focused its sardonic eye on the Chicano Movement and punctured the romanticism of the cultural nationalist. Asco was more about anarchy and rebellion than Chicano purity and self-determination.
LA FRONTERA:
In 1984, Guillermo Gomez Pena and his art cuates began The Borders Art Workshop/ Taller de Arte Fronterizo a cultural artist/ activist amalgamation of radical think tank research and discourse projects, public actos and visual arts spectaculars, and political activism that bridged las fronteras of San Diego and Tijuana. Gomez-Pena always the intellectual genius of the Chicano art movement proclaimed that Taller de Art Fronterizo was, “a bi-national collective that combined critical writing, site-specific performance, media and public art with direct political action …on both sides of the border.” Chicanismo, according to Gomez-Pena, was looking at the world without borders and art was the jackhammer that would crumble the walls of xenophobia, tribalism and nationalism.
EL VALLE DE SAN FER Y MAS ALLA:
Judy Baca, the founder of the Social Public Art Resource Center, or SPARC, introduced a Chicana feminism that, frankly, was missing in the early days of the Chicano art evolution. Baca directed the Los Angeles River Mural Project, the largest continuous mural project in the world. Baca has also assisted countless young artist with their careers in the Los Angeles area with her business acumen and political know how and well placed palancas. A critical contribution made by Baca was that she brought to the male- dominated art table the discourse between Chicana art and its views of machismo, racism, sexism, violence and misogyny as viewed by the Chicana artist. To Baca and the other Chicano Feminist artists, the status quo in the art world, and in particular, Chicano Art, would not be controlled by the myopic machistas.
EL PADRINO DE SANTA BARBARA:
I call, master muralist, educator, and community activist, Manuel Unzueta, the padrino of Santa Barbara. Manuel has almost single handedly put Chicano art, muralism and community social justice activism on his shoulders and fought with all his body, heart, body and soul to place Chicano art at the forefront of a rather smug, elitist and privileged art world that is characteristic of Santa Barbara culture. Recently I hooked up with Manuel as he was making a presentation at Santa Barbara city College. He was being honored for his over half-a-century art work and educational and community activism efforts. Manuel was asked to discuss the mural, entitled “Metamorphosis of Reality”, a massive outdoor seven-paneled mural that he painted more than 45 years ago on the Santa Barbara City College Campus Center building. In discussing the murals Manuel touched on the historical importance of creating the murals, the involvement of the communidad in the execution of the murals, the enduring legacy of murals in Santa Barbara, and finally the current efforts under way to preserve and re-touch many of the murals that still exist. The great news that came out of the talk that Manuel had at SBCC was that the administration of college, professors, and community activist have managed to come up with the funding to save and restore Manuel Unzueta’s mural masterpiece, “Metamorphosis of Reality”.
There were many more Chicano art warriors, intellectuals, scholars and others that helped create the school we have to recognize as Chicano art. The current success of Chicano art did not just materialize; we fought hard to create our own unique place and identity in the American and international art scene.
The Chicano artists and art groups that I have highlighted in this article were/are my Chicano art mentors, teachers and now my dearest friends. I wanted to contribute, participate, document and create in this fascinating period of the Sixties. Like many of my art comrades, the Chicano Movimiento intoxicated me. 1967 was cathartic and revolutionary for me. The dialogue world and I changed forever. Like so many people of that period I came to question the entire order of things, and how they operated. I would come to learn how to dissect the American systemic and institutional construct with a critical mind; I would never again be satisfied with the old order. I evolved into a Chicano artist and activist.
ACADEMIA Y ARTE CHICANO:
The Chicano Movimiento open the university doors for me, as it did for thousands of Chicanos throughout the United States. It was here that my revolutionary ideas were honed, encouraged and directed. College life was glorious and intoxicating, I had found my niche: academia and Chicano art.
We were there at the beginnings of the Chicano Movimiento, a group of student artist- activists from throughout the Los Angeles County brought together at San Fernando Valley State College, later changed to California State University at Northridge. The group, that later came together to form the nucleus of El Jardin de Flor Y Canto in the early 1970’s, was developing a unique, bold and social activist art philosophy and style that connected with the community and its social and political concerns.
From every barrio throughout southern Califas we were brought together in the turbulent, exciting and fertile halls of academia. Every day at CSUN there was a Causa, a mission for the people. Every dawn delivered another revolutionary day of feverish actions. The civil and social justice struggles at the university and the communidad fueled our artistic work. Arte was an indispensable arm of the moviemiento. As we grew as artists, we felt the need to expand our artistic endeavor far beyond the university; this is where the idea of a community cultural center had its inception.
The original group of artistas that formed the El Jardin de Flor y Canto collective were Ismael (Smiley) Cazarez, Guillermo Bejerano (Billy), Joe Bravo, Frank Martinez, and Armando Vazquez, Lisa Gallegos., Anita Garcia, Manuel Velazquez, Karen Sanz, Donna Reyes, Ton Barba, Juan Pueblo. The late great Sergio Hernandez was involved at the inception El Jardin de Flor y Canto along with the other commitments that he had with art groups in Los Angeles. By the time the Jardin opened its space to the community, Sergio was already producing his seminal cartoon strip, “Arnie and Porfi” for Con Safos magazine, still considered the best cartoon strip of the Chicano Movimiento.
EL JARDIN DE FLOR Y CANTO:
The mission of El Jardin de Flor y Canto was simple: help fuel and support the movimiento with our art. We took to the street and began mural projects throughout the San Fernando Valley and the greater Los Angeles County. Some of the murals painted during that period were highly controversial; many of the murals were condemned as incendiary and highly political and were quickly white washed. I am saddened to report that most of the murals that we painted during this period (1972-1976) are gone, whitewashed, covered up or destroyed.
Back at El Jardin de Flor y Canto, in the tiny quarters we called both studio and art gallery an incredible energy emanated from our art collective. We painted and experimented, shared a communal artistic experience that was all consuming, it fed us, made love to us, implored us to create and work with the gente of our communities.
El Jardin de Flor y Canto was the incubator for many political and art ideas. It served as the home for some talented artists that emerged in the ensuing years. It would be wrong to suggest that great art was produced during this period. However, it is clear that this magical period in the early 1970’s, El Jardin was a critical and formative artistic experience for many of us. Today Chicano artists like Frank Martinez, Ismael “Smiley” Cazarez, Joe Bravo, Guillermo Bejerano, Ramon “Psycho” Cisneros, and Sergio Hernandez, Felix Perez and Armando Vazquez are well known and respected in the art world. They all got their formative start at El Jardin de Flor y Canto. Just as quickly as the Jardin was born, it disappeared. The core group of us lasted about 4 years; it was enough to convert us all to disciples of the Chicano Art Movimiento.
ENTER: THE RUDY F. ACUNA ART GALLERY AND CULTURAL CENTER@ CAFÉ ON A:
One rainy afternoon in winter of 1997, my business partner Dr. Deborah De Vries and I were looking for a building to rent in the downtown Oxnard area. We wanted a commercial building that would serve as a multi-purpose space, suitable for the arts, instruction and would hold a large number of people for meetings, seminars and community events. I wanted to revive the spirit of the EL Jardin de Flor y Canto in the center (el ombligo) of Oxnard. By sheer luck and providence, we found the Cafe on A Street, located in heart of downtown Oxnard. It was the perfect location. After we opened the door of the Cafe to the community, we were honored in hosting and participating in hundreds of art, cultural, political and social justice events at the Cafe on A, with our community. My dream had come true. I was again involved in the noble affairs of culture and the arts. In three decades of operation, we demonstrated that a community sanctuary with its heart and soul embedded in the barrio, and that over the decades of service had gained the trust of our gente can create, exhibit, sell and contribute to the promotion and legacy of Chicana (o) Art as some of the greatest fine art being created in the world today.
Here is how our dear friend, the writer, educator, social justice and peace activist wrote about our beloved sanctuary, The Café on A: An Appreciation: By David Howard
The paradox of holy places; they exist-spatially, materially, -but they are also in your mind. And heart. This is a reflection on our sacred space in the heart of Oxnard-Café on A.
On March 14,1979, more than twenty-five years before I met Café on A co-creators Armando Vazquez and Debbie DeVries, a pre-dawn earthquake off the coast of Guerrero rumbled through Mexico City and destroyed much of Iberoamericana University where I worked. Had it struck a couple of hours later, the campus would have been teeming with students, teachers and staff. Because of the fortuitous timing hundreds of people lived who would otherwise have died.
When I got off the subway and arrived on campus that afternoon, I was shocked by the devastation. My classroom was reduced to rubble. But more than the material catastrophe, what I remember most vividly were the signs posted and painted on the walls that remained standing. Anonymous muralistas had gone to work immediately to bring forth image and poetry from the ruins.
One graffiti was seared int my brain forever: La Universidad no es edificio. The university is not a building.
It was the perfect aphorism for the campus existential crisis. We read it and went about the work of sustaining what the university really was-a community. I like to think that that no one who experienced the jolt of earthquake ad poetry that day ever again confused a building with its meaning, existence with essence.
The Jesuits founders of Iberoamericana knew something about sustaining institutions. The best among them knew the secret of sacred space: build it with your heart, your soul and your integrity, and it will last. Earthquake proof. Even if all falls down.
Paradoxically, the institutions that are built in full consciousness that they are not (merely) buildings tend to be the most beautiful, the most soulfully imperishable. Build them of brick, steel, silver and gold; or build them of wind, sand, mud, and straw. The material does not matter. The heart of the matter matters.
Debbie and Armando have designed our beloved Café on A as sacred space that’s in a building, but not of the building. And thus Cafe on A becomes the molten core,the epicenter of a different kind of earthquake. The kind that shakes asunder the foundations of injustice, that inspires artists to rock the world, that releases underground tetonic energy tp radiate in mystery and transform lives.
Café on A is exactly where it’s supposed t be: on Oxnard’s spiritual faultline, on the frontera, in the circle whose center is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere.
Que dure mil anos. May it las a thousand years
The greatest Chicano warrior of them all, Rudy Acuna always reminds us that we have to fight for self-determination, to preserve our identity, minds and souls. We must write our story, every bit of it. That is what self-determination is to me; my story, our story, our magnificent foundation that must be preserved, told, and be re-told by us, and no one else. Because if they write it or tell it, as Rudy reminds, they will invariably get it wrong! So, stay tuned there are many more chapter in this epic Chicano Art sage to be, created, lived, shared, chronicled, and memorialized.
— Armando Vazquez, M.Ed., founding member of CORE and the Acuna Art Gallery and Community Collective.