Latina Students Land Gallery Row Exhibit for Their Interpretation of Historic Olvera Street

This month Cobá will open its headquarters to expose Art Walk attendees to a photography collection from students involved in Las Fotos Project, a non-profit, community-based program that seeks to empower Latina youth through photography. The collection of photographs is from “Nuestra Placita Olvera,” a project in which the young women captured the culture and life of the city’s historic landmark, Olvera Street, by documenting its annual celebrations.

Headquartered in the heart of the arts district in downtown Los Angeles, Cobá wanted to respect the culture of the neighborhood and thus transformed their office into a gallery featuring the work of various accomplished, local artists. Last month, Cobá featured the work of Yolanda Gonzalez, whose bold use of color and texture reflects her family’s long heritage of artists. In April, José Ramirez’s sociopolitical paintings, rich with images of Chicano culture, were a hit.

The Las Fotos Project encourages young women to express their individuality and creativity and hone their artistic talents with photography training, mentoring and field projects. On display will be the work of Valerie Beltran, age 16, Julie Cabral, age 18, Civil Hernandez, age 16, Jessenia Pineda, age 14, and Yoali Sayago, age 17. According to Las Fotos Project founder Eric V. Ibarra, “The students took a photojournalistic approach to this project by documenting historical celebrations that may be forever changed in the future. Their ability to create this beautiful installation full of color, culture, and life was very inspirational to the Las Fotos Project community and we are all very proud that their hard work and amazing accomplishments will be shared with such a large audience.”

Cobá CEO, Arnulfo Ventura stated, “Art Walk is a great venue and opportunity for these students to display their best work and I know how much this means to them.” Later adding, “Orozco’s murals in Guadalajara made an impact on me as a child and today, I see Yolanda (Gonzalez) and José (Ramirez) as some of the greats of our time. Arts have a rich history in the Latino culture and I’m just glad we’re able to provide a forum to keep celebrating these fabulous artists.”

The event takes place the evening of Thursday, June 9 during the general hours of Art Walk. Cobá, the first ready-to-drink all-natural aguas frescas company, will be providing samples of their authentic aguas frescas sweetened with organic agave.To learn more about Cobá and its work with local artists, please go to www.drinkcoba.com. For more information about Las Fotos Project, visit lasfotosproject.org.

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Blood Daughters: A Romilia Chacón Novel

A Novel by Marcos M. Villatoro

A child dies on the border between California and Mexico. This is nothing new: immigrants die crossing the border all the time, escaping from poverty and violence in Latin America. They bake in the desert. But this death is different. Someone has taken body parts from the child.

FBI Agent Romilia Chacón, a Salvadoran American, follows this case into a world that swallows her with its horror, a world that exists alongside ours, where children are bought and sold like cattle and shipped to men all across the country. The dealers in this blackest of markets have no moral barometer, only the lust for cash. And one among them has taken murder to a level beyond serial killing.

Romilia comes to this case already broken: the man she loved and yet had to hunt—drug runner Tekún Umán, a regular on the FBI’s Most Wanted List—is gone. Romilia has two friends, her partner Nancy Pearl—who lives a double life between the Feds and the cartels—and a bottle of booze. Romilia’s mother is on her back to get sober; her son drifts further away. And the killer is taking away pieces of Romilia’s life, day by day.

Blood Daughters: A Romilia Chacón Novel

A Novel by Marcos M. Villatoro

ISBN: 978-1-59709-426-9

5.5 x 8.5; Tradepaper

232 pages

Price: US $21.95

Scheduled Release: October 1, 2011

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The Big Filter

[Click image to enlarge. Photo by Jesús Garza. Delilah Montoya and Ann Marie Leimer at a Santa Monica gallery.]

In the world of American art and photography, there is one center. New York. Here, careers are made or destroyed.

This metropolis touts their power. What happens in New York according to sycophants reverberates worldwide. Artists must submit to the Big Filter.

Chicanas and Chicanos are not a concern to the Big Filter. In fact, Raza does not exist in their myopic eyes. Other cultures and groups supersede Raza. The Big Filter doesn’t hate Raza; they are just ignorant and arrogant.

They are ignorant of a growing Chicano/Chicana arts community. Also arrogant to assume that only their pain, love and creations are manifest. Raza has to be content to sit on the sideline.

A New Yorker will pass through the Big Filter’s sieve easily. Apparently they have the appropriate ethnic or religious qualifications. What are Raza to do?

###

American Story With Latin Roots and Beats

[Photo: Ritchie Valens by Gil Rocha]

By LARRY ROHTER
NY Times

In the mid-1990s the documentary filmmakers Elizabeth Deane and Adriana Bosch would sometimes meet in the cafeteria and offices of WGBH in Boston to talk about programs they might make together. Ms. Deane had just finished producing the 10-part “Rock & Roll” series for PBS and wanted to do more about music. Ms. Bosch, a Cuban-American, was interested in making mainstream audiences more aware of Latin culture.

After more than a decade, during which they struggled to raise production money and worked on several other projects, the outcome of those brainstorming sessions is about to go on the air. “Latin Music USA,” a four-part series that most PBS stations will begin broadcasting on Monday, is an effort to bring those two different perspectives together, in much the way that Latin music itself is a fusion and hybrid.

“Our twin objectives were to engage the widest possible audience while also doing justice to the music for a more knowledgeable Latino viewership,” Ms. Deane said. “For people like me, this was a wonderful discovery. But for Latinos, this is the music they live and breathe, with artists they have known all their lives.”

Each hourlong segment in the series, produced in association with the BBC, focuses on a particular style, place or time. The first two programs concentrate on Latin jazz and salsa, genres that developed mainly in New York. Part 3, “Chicano Wave,” looks at forms of Mexican-American music that have emerged in the Southwest. The final episode, “Divas and Superstars,” features recent pop-oriented singers and producers mostly out of Miami or New York.

“We make documentaries about American history, and what we wanted to do was place this music as part of a history that we all share,” Ms. Bosch said. “We were trying to find the connections, find uniting factors, so that anybody anywhere in America can look at and identify with this story.”

Often, the series demonstrates, those linkages are almost subterranean. At one point in the first program, “Bridges,” snippets of hits by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Young Rascals and Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, including “Satisfaction” and “Day Tripper,” are juxtaposed with identical cha-cha or mambo riffs recorded years earlier and all but forgotten.

But the series shows that the influences don’t flow in just one direction. The accordionist Flaco Jimenez, for example, explains how German polka bands in Texas influenced his Tex-Mex style, playing riffs that illustrate his point. And the Tejano star Little Joe recalls a childhood picking cotton in Texas alongside African-Americans, who gave him a love for the blues.

“Latin Music USA” also includes rare and unusual archival footage. There are home movies of Ritchie Valens with his mother shortly before he died in the 1959 plane crash that also killed Buddy Holly; of a young Celia Cruz singing with a full orchestra in Cuba; and of musical performances tied to Cesar Chavez’s farmworkers’ union rallies.

Even stories familiar through movies and other parts of mainstream culture take on a new coloration thanks to the filmmakers’ efforts to track down supporting players. In one particularly moving vignette, Bob Keane, Valens’s producer and manager, remembers driving a Thunderbird to San Francisco from Los Angeles with Valens in the back seat playing his guitar and stumbling across the riff that powered the rock classic “La Bamba.”

In another, the producer Huey Meaux tells how he rescued the future country-music star Freddy Fender from a job in a Houston carwash that Mr. Fender, born Baldemar Huerta, got after serving a prison term in Louisiana on a questionable drug charge. That name change and Mr. Fender’s troubles with the law underscore some broader points the filmmakers wanted to make about the role of music in defining identity and enduring prejudice.

“It was hard to find original footage” of Mr. Fender, Valens and Little Joe “because we Mexican-Americans are almost like phantoms of history,” said John Valadez, who directed the “Chicano Wave” episode. “This film doesn’t pull any punches in terms of racism and struggle, but it’s not a bitter or angry film.”

All four programs are narrated by the actor Jimmy Smits, who was born in Brooklyn and grew up in New York and Puerto Rico. For him too, the project’s appeal was as much emotional and personal as intellectual: his parents, he said, met at the Palladium Ballroom, the hub of the Latin music dance scene in Manhattan during the 1950s, and he has vivid memories of hearing the boogaloo sound as a teenager.

In four hours “Latin Music USA” cannot possibly be comprehensive, and does not pretend to be. Mr. Smits said he was “already getting e-mail messages from friends asking why so-and-so was left out,” and each director and producer expressed regret about some favorite artist who did not make the final cut.

“We know there is so much more than one could do,” Ms. Deane said. “This is such a universe of great music, and we hope this series and the DVD and CD that go along with it will spur more thinking about programming in this area.”

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Computer-aided Chicano Artist Ignacio Farías

If art isn’t free, then what is it, asks local artist Ignacio Farías.

By Shannon O'Connor
The Zonie Report

Farías, 61, is a self-taught Chicano artist who creates abstract works using digital composition with acrylics and paints. His sole intention for his work is only to be beautiful, and he makes no bones about being called a “wall decorator” or using a computer to help create his works.

Born and raised in Mexico City, Farías began drawing things as a child. He said he was always in trouble at school for drawing caricatures of teachers and doodling in class.

He moved to Arizona in 1983 with his first wife, a native Arizonan, and their children. His techniques and unique styles come from experimentation and his only standard is to rarely, if ever, use a paintbrush.

“(In the beginning), I felt reluctant to use brushes,” Farías says. “Everyone uses brushes so I had to find another way.”

Instead, he uses a variation of tools that ranges from kitchen and carving utensils to spatulas, ice picks, combs and syringes. The only consistent marking that can be found on his works that were made with a brush is his signature, which he said enabled him to sign his name in a unique, Asian-looking style.

But it was his other hobbies, such as photography and advertising, that led to the use of digital composition in his artwork.

These tools of the 21st Century are the reason that Farías refers to his work as the product of “extreme mix media.” He says he’s a PC guy who uses a Velocity and plenty of Adobe software to bring his artistic visions to life.

Although the use of a computer may help with artistic effects, it doesn’t necessarily make the process go faster, Farías says. Much of the process involves the subconscious mind.

“Inspiration is not related,” Farías says. “Art is like a blessed area where the most beautiful things can happen. Never mind what is outside.”

Farías’ works are often created as a series, such as “The Eyes of a Woman,” which has about 80 different versions.

“No two women have the same eyes,” Farías said. “(They are) like fingerprints.”

Each displays the different types of women in the world. However, a few of them have an animal name that identifies the type of woman it depicts according to the Mesoamerican culture of Mexico. For example, the painting called “Eagle Woman Eyes” is a depiction of the “executive woman.”

Some of his other works are depicted on multiple canvases, such as “A Fascinating City,” which was done as an ode to Paris. This work is a display of five separate canvases that are displayed inches apart from one another but are connected by the flow of the elongated picture that they depict.

Link to Ignacio Farías website: http://www.ignaciofarias.com/
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The Invisible Chicano

[Click image of the printable PDF poster to enlarge. Copyright 2008 Jesus Manuel Mena Garza. All rights reserved.]

If you travel outside the Southwest, a strange phenomenon occurs. Chicanos* become invisible.

This ubiquitous phenomenon is most obvious on East Coast campuses. Chicano culture is not valued here. Chicanocentric art and history are dismissed with nary a thought.

[Click: To learn more about Chicano Studies]

They value traditional courses (you know what they are.) Occasionally they deliver a course on African-Americans or Afro-Latins. East Coasters know a bit (only a little bit) about the African Diaspora. Please don't ask them about Nepantla and Aztlan.

I am a strong proponent of more diversity. We need more classes on Asian-American, American-Indian, African-American and Chicano culture. Lord knows we are drowning in European culture, like it or not.

Here is an important fact. Today (2008), Chicanos are the largest minority group in the USA. Even with a new fence on the border, Chicanos will continue to expand their presence. Chicanos are migrating all across our country including Iowa, New York and Georgia. Yes, the Mexicano/Chicano Diaspora is changing the face of America. Some Americans don't appreciate the new paradigm. Do you?

The University of Minnesota understands what is taking place. Unlike those East Coast schools, they are hiring professors in Chicano Studies. Eventually, hopefully, some East Coast schools will consider expanding their knowledge base. In the interim, you can take classes on the Northern-Renaissance and the Crusades.

By the way you don’t have to be brown to teach Chicanocentric courses. In my opinion, all you need is a healthy respect and understanding of the cultural nuances. Admitting that Chicano culture is relevant in today's world is the first step towards creating a curriculum that effectively embraces the new American paradigm.

*Chicanas, Chicanos and Chicana/os

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Legendary Tortilla Factory Releases CD "All That Jazz"

First CD from Tortilla Factory after 23-year hiatus.

The legendary Tortilla Factory, the Texas Chicano supergroup, has released a new CD "All that Jazz" 23 years after their last release, and Bobby Butler's voice is as rich as ever. Known as "El Charro Negro" to his fans, he has the distinction of being the only African American who sings the "Homeland Texas Chicano" a term coined by the band's leader, Tony "Ham" Guerrero.

Joining the band is Tony's son Alfredo Guerrero, infusing a new note into the band's repertoire by singing songs with an urban flavor as well as the ballad "Hasta Que Te Conoci." Jerry Lopez (Ricky Martin, Marc Anthony) from Santa Fe and the Fat City Horns lends guitar and vocals to that track.

Lopez said, "I was honored and very flattered to work on this project. Tony has worked with some of the greats in our business, and I wanted to give back a little of what the Tortilla Factory gave me in my formative years. Just by being on their CD I have earned a 'badge' that I wanted for a long time."

Tony sings a particularly poignant standard, "What a Wonderful World," a song filled with the emotion of a man who has fought a battle for his health in the last two years, including dying twice on the operating table.

The recent submission of "All That Jazz" to the National Recording Academy for Grammy consideration was quite an arduous process, made difficult by the fact that the music is so hard to pigeonhole. For example, tracks from the CD fall into categories as diverse as Acid Jazz, to Spanish Ballads, to Jazz Standards, to Urban Contemporary, to traditional Tejano. About the closest description can be American World Music, a genre-defying melting pot of sound. There is a unique tone that weaves through all the songs, a definite sound that identifies it as true as Texas.

Bandleader Tony Guerrero, known as "Ham" to his audience, winces at the word "Tejano" and the stereotype it invokes. In 1963, when he was traveling the country with Johnny Long & His Orchestra, the other musicians (Italians and Jews from New York who were much older than the young Tony) were intrigued by the sound he was playing during a break in practice, and asked him to describe it. "They liked it and wanted to know what it was. About the only thing I could think to say was that it was Texas Chicano Homeland. That's when I came up with that description. "

Along the way, Tony has met and played with some of the legends of music. He went to San Francisco in 1964 and landed right in the middle of the flower-power scene. Tony relates "it was the start of the Haight-Ashbury flower power era, and we were all just a bunch of broke musicians living in the Mission District of San Francisco...it was more like the hood...Carlos Santana, Jerry Garcia, and Greg Rollie (Journey), we were all there at that time. "

Tony Guerrero was part of a very popular act called Little Joe Y Familia in the early '70s, they played rock three nights a week at the Orphanage Night Club in San Francisco. They recorded a Latin rock album called "La Familia Inc. Finally." Essentially, the "Familia" seceded to become "The Tortilla Factory." Tony, a gifted musician who was granted a scholarship to the Berkley College of Music, wanted to develop in a different direction. Now, Tortilla Factory's music is analyzed and study in music theory classes at Berkley, bringing events full circle.

The Tortilla Factory was "indie" before the term was coined. Drawing over a million dollars a year in the '70s without a record label, and subequently getting in trouble with the IRS because of it, the band was a successful touring act all over the United States, drawing crowds of thousands. That fan base is still there. "In only two performances we've done in the last two years our attendance was over 1,500 people both times," Guerrero said.

Tejano Music" is a much misused umbrella term that actually incorporates a lot of different types of music. "That's unfortunate, many of us don't fall into this stereotype because we don't all play accordions and wear cowboy hats." The genre has all but been ignored by the major record labels and even the spanish-speaking radio stations. Recently the hundreds of thousands of Tejano fans have been very active. The Austin Tejano Music Coalition, with the support of Senator Barrientos (D), Texas announced on August 28, 2008 the start of two new stations, one FM and one AM, that will play this music exclusively.

Arnold Garcia, Editor of the Austin American Statesman, said, "Guerrero and other Tejano troubadours were the connecting tissue of Chicano culture in their heyday. They provided the bilingual sound track of our lives not to mention all those memories of Saturday night dances that provided rhythmic relief from drab lives. Sociology aside, it was and is just damn good music."

For information and media contact email Christine Thompson, Publicist at christine@amfmstudios.com.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YazEHGqhflU
www.tonyhamguerrero.com

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Trackback URL: http://www.prweb.com/pingpr.php/RW1wdC1TdW1tLUhvcnItU3VtbS1QaWdnLVNpbmctWmVybw==

Photographer's Close View of Cultura

By Monica Rhor, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

HOUSTON - With his Nikon D2X camera balanced on a tripod and natural light glinting through an open doorway, Chuy Benitez stood inside the waiting room of the Auto Chrome Plating Company.

He waited for nearly four hours: for the shot he had envisioned since first stumbling upon the shop tucked in an industrial pocket of southeast Houston months earlier; for the scene that would encapsulate the juncture of work and family life in this business owned by a Mexican-American family.

As the minutes passed on that Friday afternoon, Benitez waited for the instant when children would tumble into the space already brimming with workers in blue jumpsuits, wheels of polished chrome and stuffed deer heads mounted on the walls.

Suddenly, the shop owner's children spilled into the room and a dark-haired, ponytailed girl waved a doll with tresses just like her own, beguiling her grandfather who still wore his rumpled mechanic's uniform.

"This is what I've been looking for," Benitez recalls thinking.

Over the next eight minutes, the young photographer fired off the frames that would be melded together to create "Family Chrome Shop," an oversized panoramic photograph that is part of a series called "Houston Cultura."

That series, and Benitez's collection of portraits of Houston's Mexican-American community leaders, offer an intimate view of an often marginalized population through tableaux of events plucked from the daily life of Mexican-Americans. Both are currently on exhibit through April 12 at the Lawndale Art Gallery in Houston.

"It's a really great look into an important part of the Houston community," said Dennis Nance, the gallery's director of exhibitions and programming. "It's focusing on one community, but accessible to everyone. It says, 'This is who we are,' but it is not exclusive."

Like "Family Chrome Shop," in which a multitude of images, actions and story lines fill a 110-inch-by-36-inch frame, Benitez's work captures the juxtaposition of young and old, modern and mythic, ordinary and unusual, Mexican and American.

In one piece from "Houston Cultura," a group of charros, or Mexican cowboys, riding horseback and wielding lassos converge on a downtown intersection. In another, a mariachi band in finely embroidered costumes entertains shoppers inside a Fiesta supermarket.

"I went through all these transformations of finding those things in the community and I'm just trying to pass that along," says Benitez, a 24-year-old with a sharply trimmed goatee and amber eyes. "If you know nothing about it, look, I knew nothing. Let me show you what there is."
Born and raised in El Paso, Texas, on the U.S.-Mexico border, Benitez grew up living in a place where the two cultures existed side-by-side, but separately.

As a child, he was taught the lessons of the Chicano civil rights movement, which emphasized the search for identity and independence. He fed his artistic hunger by studying the work of 

Chicano photographers and Mexican muralists.
It wasn't until he went to the University of Notre Dame that he realized the mix of cultures within him.

"I thought I was American. From growing up in El Paso, living on one side of border, I thought that made you American," says Benitez, who is of Mexican descent. "But I realized I'm so not purely American. I'm such a hybrid."

After he graduated from college, Benitez began to look for other examples of hybridity. He found the perfect muse in Houston, a city where Mexican and American cultures are fused on an almost molecular level.

"There's no border, so it's all just mashing up and doing whatever it wants to do. No holds barred. It's just free," he says about Houston.

Benitez began to document "Houston Cultura" three years ago, after he entered graduate school at the University of Houston and a fellowship at the UH Center for Mexican-American Studies.

For that series, Benitez chose to use a digital panoramic technique in which multiple shots of the same scene are layered together, creating a richly textured canvas that reflects the influence of Mexican muralists such as Diego Rivera and Saturnino Herran.

In "Leaders of Houston Cultura," Benitez's portraits of community leaders, he used a fisheyed, wide-angle lens to create 360-degree diptychs, which serve as metaphors for the subjects' dual cultural identity. So far, Benitez has shot more than 40 portraits.

In Benitez's panoramic photographs, as in Mexican murals, the wide frame encompasses a profusion of details and activities. The main subjects - ordinary people whose lives often go unheralded - loom large in the foreground. But every crevice and corner contains an additional nugget of information about the subject's lives.

"I wanted to get physically close to everyone and everything," he notes. "If I'm getting close, if I'm getting more in-depth than anyone else is, then my photographs are going to communicate that to other people and people will hopefully get feeling of having a connection with the community. "The focus may be the Mexican-American community, but the themes, he says, are simple and universal: work, family, music, religion.

"La Virgen de la Baking Pan" shows a family on a pilgrimage to a makeshift shrine where they pay homage to an incarnation of the Virgin Mary on a piece of cookware. Protected by umbrellas, the family seems to move toward the icon with both reverence and fear.

The baking pan itself is draped with rosaries and flanked by candles bearing the likeness of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the "brown-skinned virgin" who is said to have appeared before Mexican peasant Juan Diego in 1531. In the far corner, a neighbour sits on his porch, undisturbed by the otherworldly occurrence.

In many of the works, tiny markers of Houston (often Houston Astros paraphernalia) pop up amid the chaos - a reminder that the photographs are not only portraits of people but also of a city in transformation.

"These are simply things worth sharing because I want there to be better understanding of where I come from and where Houston is going. Houston is officially a Hispanic city," Benitez says.

"It goes along with what the future is going to hold, which is a browner America."

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Public Forum on Lynching at the University of Redlands

The Department of Art and the Department of Art History at the University of Redlands invite participation in a public forum, Lynched: Reflection and Resistance at the Peppers Art Gallery, Thursday, Mar. 6, 2008, 7 to 9 p.m. A reception with the artists follows at the University’s Alumni House.

The public forum responds to the exhibition, The Edge of Conscience: The Long Shadow of Lynching that runs Feb. 19 to Mar. 16, 2008 at the Peppers Art Gallery.

University of Redlands’ Professor Ann Marie Leimer will moderate the panel. She said, “Most people think of lynching as a phenomenon that took place only in the South, but it also occurred in California as well as many other places in the Unites States. In California, Mexicans were often targets of these racist attacks.”

Dr. Leimer added, “Historically, the issue of the victim's guilt is secondary or often inconsequential in a lynching. The mob serves as prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner. Grounded in a discussion of artworks produced by Ann Tyler and Constance White, the panel will explore the impact of lynching and its effect on the American psyche. The panel will also examine these issues within the context of recent events, such as the Jena 6.”

The distinguished panel includes the artists Professors Ann Tyler and Constance White, from the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as scholars Dr. Sheila Lloyd, University of Redlands, and Dr. Tiffany López, University of California, Riverside.

Since the exhibition and forum will examine issues of racial violence in the United States, it may not be suitable for all audiences. This event has been generously supported by Student Life, Diversity Affairs, Women’s Studies, Race and Ethnic Studies, the Department of Art and the Department of Art History at the University of Redlands.

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For more information please contact: Ann Marie Leimer, Ph.D., University or Redlands, (909) 748-8505, ann_leimer@redlands.edu

Chicano Photographer Show in San Bernardino

San Bernardino's Valley College presents 26 photographs from the documentary series Chicano Photographer by California photographer Jesús Manuel Mena Garza, Jan. 22 through Feb. 7, 2008. The public is invited to a reception at the college’s Gresham Art Gallery on Jan. 24, 5 to 7 p.m.

University of Redlands’ Professor Ann Marie Leimer served as curator for the exhibition. Leimer notes, “During the past decades, Garza has extensively published and exhibited several documentary photographic series. The Chicano Photographer series explores important aspects of the American experience, historic events and cultural practices often marginalized by the dominant culture.” Dr. Leimer is currently developing a book on the photographic series.

For more information contact Ann Marie Leimer, Ph.D. at (909) 748-8505.

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Free Super Chicana/o Posters

Be the first in your neighborhood, barrio or gated community to download a FREE/GRATIS Super Chicano/a poster। You don't have to be a Super Chican@ to own any of these fantastic posters. Hispanics and others are also welcome to share in the glory. All you have to do is "click" on the thumbnail image of the poster to download.

Save your downloaded 11x17 inch PDF and print two copies (a laser printer works fine... an offset printer is better)। By the way, you can easily downsize the PDF to make a letter size (8.5 x 11) print. Generously give one poster to your Chicano/a Studies (Hispanic Studies may not count!) or photography professor. They will be absolutely impressed by your excellent taste.

If you're a Chicano/a Studies Prof, tenured or not, you should download my Chicano Photographer series brochure (8.5 x 11 inch). It details images from my Chicano Photography series that you may want for your next book or presentation. By the way, you are in luck, Jesús Garza is available for presentations, conferences, exhibitions, panels and especially lunch. Gracias!

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Late July 2007 Trip to the San Francisco Bay Area

[Photos: Top photo, Jesús at Muir Beach north of San Francisco, next photo, Jesús and Ann Marie with their new grandchild Jacob in San José. Click on image to enlarge. Copyright 2007 Jesús Manuel Mena Garza. All rights reserved.]

Here are the requisite photographs from our trip to the Bay Area. We had a great time visiting our daughter Estrella, her husband Jimmy and the kids in San José. We stayed at my sister Carmen's ranch also in San José and enjoyed the great weather. It was a nice respite from the hot temps in the Inland Empire.

Later in the week we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge into the fanciful world called Marin County. There we stayed with Ann's friends in San Raphael. It was great to be in this beautiful and affluent part of the country. One day we spent playing in the pool on another we went hiking from the Green Gulch Zen Center to Muir Beach. When Ann and I lived in SF we enjoyed this short and easy hike from the Zen Gardens to the always (it seems that way) foggy beach.

The new photos include our latest grandchild (in the diaper) Jacob.

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LA Chicano Photography Panel Discussion A Success

[Photo: Panelists discuss photography and the Chicano Movement in LA. Click on image to enlarge. Copyright 2007 Jesús Manuel Mena Garza. All rights reserved.]

Carlotta’s Passion Fine Art of Los Angeles hosted a panel discussion on essential literary and visual documentation of the Chicano Movement on Friday, June 29.

Photographers Oscar Castillo, Jesús Manuel Mena Garza, George Rodriguez and scholar Dionne Espinoza, Ph.D. headed the panel. This panel discussion took place during the exhibition Struggle and Liberation: Photographs of Seminal Events and Icons of the 1960s - 1970s. Hollywood Director Jesús Trevino moderated the panel.

The panel discussion examined the photography, events and issues of the Chicano Movement (El Movimiento Chicano of the late 1960s and early 70s). The audience stood up, asked questions and freely gave their perspective. In the end, the event proved to be informative and inspiring. More than 100 people attended.

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Chicano Photographer Show In Los Angeles

[Photo: Los Mascarones, 1974. Click on image to enlarge. Copyright 2007 Jesús Manuel Mena Garza. All rights reserved.]

Carlotta’s Passion Fine Art of Los Angeles, California presents eleven photographs from the documentary series Chicano Photographer by California photographer Jesús Manuel Mena Garza, June 9 through July 1, 2007. The photographs are part of the exhibition titled, Struggle and Liberation: Photographs of Seminal Events and Icons of the 1960s and 1970s. The public is invited to a reception on June 9, 6 to 10 p.m.

University of Redlands’ Professor Ann Marie Leimer said, “Garza has extensively published and exhibited several documentary photographic series during the past decades. This series explores important aspects of the American experience, pieces of which are often marginalized by the dominant culture.”

During the 70s, Jesús Garza toured with theater groups in Mexico and California. From this vantage point, he took intimate portraits of people fighting for human rights. From César E. Chavez to Rodolfo ’Corky’ Gonzales, the photographs provide a retrospective glimpse from the unique perspective of a photojournalist and activist.

A more comprehensive exhibition that includes presentations and workshops by the artist will be held this fall at Saint Mary’s University of Maryland in Saint Mary’s City, Maryland and in spring 2008 at Valley College in San Bernardino, California. The photographs at Carlotta’s Passion have been previously exhibited during 2006 in Los Angeles, San José and Riverside galleries. This is the first time the photographs will be on sale as part of a limited edition.

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Exhibition location: Carlotta’s Passion Fine Art, 2012 Colorado Blvd., 
Los Angeles (Eagle Rock), CA 90041.
Gallery telephone: (323) 259-1563
View photographs: http://www.jmmgarza.com/cp/