The Chicano Art Movement

As can be seen throughout history, art is a powerful expressive model that has the capacity to instruct and construct social change within a community. The art born out of the Chicano Movement of the 1960’s is a perfect example of this phenomenon. In response to the struggle for civil rights for Mexican-Americans immigrants, Chicanos and Chicanas created an art aesthetic that embodied the activist spirit of the movement. As Alicia Gaspar de Alba once stated, “the Chicano art movement functioned as the aesthetic representation of the political, historical, cultural and linguistic issues that constituted the agenda of the Chicano civil rights movement.” By taking an activist approach to challenge the stereotypes, economic inequality and xenophobic shortcomings of the dominant mainstream and by promoting awareness of history, culture and community the visual art of the Chicano Movement served as a political tool to enact social change for Mexican-American Immigrants of all generations.

El Movimiento or the Chicano movement made waves in the 1960’s in shedding light on the marginalized role and economic, political and cultural struggles of Mexican-Americans living in the United States. Awareness to the movement was made even more known with the work of Cesar Chavez and the National Farm Workers Association, an effort to unionize California farm workers, which signaled a mobilization, known as La Causa, among people of Mexican descent in the USA (Ybarra-Frausto 2). Another defining moment in the movement was the National Chicano Moratorium. A movement of Chicano anti-war activists that built a broad based coalition of Mexican American groups to organize opposition to the Vietnam war in response to the extremely high numbers of Chican...

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...came associated with the labor struggles of Mexican-American immigrants and of the Chicano movement were born. For them on, when images of the eagle flag or the UFW signage were seen, people would remember the political importance of the Chicano movement.

Through various motifs, themes and mediums, the visual art of the Chicano movement addressed issues of intolerance, racism, marginalization and discrimination. By re-interpreting traditional art of Mexico, accessing the culture of their pre-Columbian ancestors, creating strong local communities, and directly addressing controversial economic and political issues, artists involved in the movement recognized the need for visual imagery that embodied the political efforts of Mexican-American immigrants and citizens who fought and continue to fight for racial and cultural acceptance, recognition and representation.