Chicano or Chicana is an ethnic identity for Mexican Americans who have a non-Anglo self-image, embracing their Mexican Native ancestry. 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.
Chicana feminism is a sociopolitical movement, theory, and praxis that scrutinizes the historical, cultural, spiritual, educational, and economic intersections impacting Chicanas and the Chicana/o community in the United States. Chicana feminism empowers women to challenge institutionalized social norms and regards anyone a feminist who fights for the end of women's oppression in the community.
Ester Hernández is a California Bay Area Chicana visual artist recognized for her prints and pastels focusing on farm worker rights, cultural, political, and Chicana feminist issues.
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.
Alicia Gaspar de Alba is an American scholar, cultural critic, novelist, and poet whose works include historical novels and scholarly studies on Chicana/o art, culture and sexuality.
Roberta Fernández is a Tejana novelist, scholar, critic and arts advocate. She is known for her novel Intaglio and for her work editing several award-winning women writers. She was a professor in Romance languages & literatures and women's studies at the University of Georgia.
Paula Santiago is a Gallega mixed media digital artist whose works have been displayed at the Apóstol Santiago and several galleries in Galicia and North America. Most of her work stands out by being made with her own blood and hair.
Evangelina Vigil-Piñón is a Chicana poet, children's book author, director, translator, and television personality.
The Museo Alameda was the largest Latino museum in the United States and the first formal Smithsonian affiliate outside of Washington D.C., located in the historic Market Square in Downtown San Antonio, Texas.
Melanie Cervantes is a Xicana artist and activist based in the Bay Area.
Natalia Anciso is an American Chicana-Tejana contemporary artist and educator. Her artwork focuses primarily on issues involving Identity, especially as it pertains to her experiences growing up along the U.S.-Mexico Border, via visual art and installation art. Her more recent work covers topics related to education, human rights, and social justice, which is informed by her experience as an urban educator in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a native of the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas and currently lives and works in Oakland, California.
Santa Barraza is an American mixed-media artist and painter who is well known for her colorful, retablo style painting. A Chicana, Barraza pulls inspiration from her own mestiza ancestry and from pre-Columbian art. Barraza is considered to be an important artist in the Chicano art movement. The first scholarly treatment of a Chicana artist is about her and is called Santa Barraza, Artist of the Borderlands, which describes her life and body of work. Barraza's work is collected by the Mexic-Arte Museum, and other museums around the United States and internationally. She currently lives in Kingsville, Texas.
Xavier Garza is an author and illustrator of children's books and professor of art at Northwest Vista College in San Antonio.
Celia Álvarez Muñoz is a Chicana mixed-media conceptual artist and photographer based in Arlington, Texas.
Patricia Rodriguez is a prominent Chicana artist and educator. Rodriguez grew up in Marfa, Texas and moved to San Francisco to later pursue an art degree at Merritt College and this is where she learned about the Mexican American Liberation Art Front (MALA-F) and the Chicano Movement. In 1970, Patricia received a scholarship to the San Francisco Art Institute and this is where she met Graciela Carrillo. Together, they created and founded the Mujeres Muralistas, the first Chicana women's mural collective in San Francisco.
Nanibah "Nani" Chacon is a Diné and Chicana painter, muralist, and art educator. Her work has been installed at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, the Navajo Nation Museum in Window Rock, the ISEA International Arts and Technology Symposium, Old Town Lansing, and in the "Que Chola" Exhibition at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, among other venues.
Suzy González is an American artist and activist, she is known for her paintings and zines that explore social and political issues. She is part of the artist/art curation duo, Dos Mestizx, along with artist Michael Menchaca.
Adriana Corral is an American artist born in El Paso, Texas, who focuses on installation, performance, and sculpture. Her artwork often emphasizes themes of memory, contemporary human rights violations, and under-examined historical narratives. Corral completed her B.F.A. at the University of Texas at El Paso in 2008 and her M.F.A. at the University of Texas at Austin in 2013. Her work has been exhibited at the Betty Moody Gallery, Houston, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin, Texas, Blue Star Contemporary in San Antonio, Texas, the McNay Art Museum, and Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. She has received a series of awards recognizing her work including The Joan Mitchell Foundation Emerging Artist Grant, The MacDowell Colony Grant, and The National Association of Latino Arts and Culture Grant.
Mari Hernandez is a photographer known for her self-portraits that reflect Chicana cultural identity. She is a co-founder of Más Rudas, a Chicana artist collective. She has had works exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Artpace, and the Galveston Art Center.
Leticia Huerta is a Chicana artist known for her public art and paintings that reshape community spaces.
(age 39)