Martha Gonzalez
Ch�caN� ArtiviStas Music, Community, and Transborder
Tactics in East Los Angeles
| l a t i n x & c h i c a n x s t u d i e s | Art
A Grammy Award–winning singer and scholar explores how Chican@ artivistas in East Los Angeles, from 1995 to the present, have created a unique community of process-based political engagement influenced by the Zapatista and Fandango movements
Chican@ Artivistas
Music, Community, and Transborder Tactics in East Los Angeles by Martha Gonzalez
Martha G on zal ez El Sereno, California Gonzalez is an associate professor of Chicana/o Latina/o studies at Scripps/Claremont College and lead singer of the Grammy Award–winning rock band Quetzal. She is the author of “Zapateado Afro-Chicana Fandango Style: SelfReflective Moments in Zapateado” in Dancing Across Borders: Danzas y Bailes Mexicanos.
rel ease dat e | j uly 6 x 9 inches, 192 pages, 15 b&w photos
ISBN 978-1-4773-2113-3 $29.95* | £24.99 | C$44.95 paperback
ISBN 978-1-4773-2112-6 $90.00* | £74.00 | C$135.00
As the lead singer of the Grammy Award–winning rock band Quetzal and a scholar of Chicana/o and Latina/o studies, Martha Gonzalez is uniquely positioned to articulate the ways in which creative expression can serve the dual roles of political commentary and community building. Drawing on postcolonial, Chicana, black feminist, and performance theories, Chican@ Artivistas explores the visual, musical, and performance art produced in East Los Angeles since the inception of NAFTA and the subsequent antiimmigration rhetoric of the 1990s. Showcasing the social impact made by key artist-activists on their communities and on the mainstream art world and music industry, Gonzalez charts the evolution of a now-canonical body of work that took its inspiration from the Zapatista movement, particularly its masked indigenous participants, and that responded to efforts to impose systems of labor exploitation and social subjugation. Incorporating Gonzalez’s memories of the Mexican nationalist music of her childhood and her band’s journey to Chiapas, the book captures the mobilizing music, poetry, dance, and art that emerged in pre-gentrification corners of downtown Los Angeles and that went on to inspire flourishing networks of bold, innovative artivistas.
hardcover
ISBN 978-1-4773-2139-3 $29.95* e-book
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University of Texas Press | spring 2020