Photo courtesy of Enrique Figueroa
Enrique Figueroa was the director of the Roberto Hernández Center at UW-Milwaukee and created the GenteChicana/SOYmosChicanos fund to financially support Chicano (Mexican American) artists and creators.
To support and spread understanding about the experience of Americans of Mexican descent and culture, Enrique Figueroa, Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics, created the GenteChicana/SOYmosChicanos fund to financially support Chicano (Mexican American) creators. Before retiring, Figueroa was director of the Roberto Hernández Center at UW-Milwaukee from 2002 until 2016. Off the Cuff caught up with him to talk about his involvement and appreciation of the Chicano movement.
What was your personal experience with the Chicano artistic movement?
In high school, I got involved with the Mexican American organizations in my hometown, and then I joined the Brown Berets for two years when I was in college; when I went to UC Davis, we formed a teatro, a theater group called Teatro Suspiro del Barrio. Because of my artistic involvement in theater, I was inducted into an organization of artists called the Royal Chicano Air Force (RCAF) that started in Sacramento, Cali., then expanded to other parts of the country. That’s really the beginning of my interest in Chicano art.
A lot of members of RCAF were muralists, poets, print screeners, sculptors, musicians, writers… I’ve always had an interest in Chicano literature, I have a collection of it and somewhat of a collection of Chicano art. When I retired, I said, ‘I’ll have time to devote some time to establishing this fund to promote the understanding, appreciation and practice of Chicano arts!’
What defines Chicano art?
The proper term for it is eclectic. Basically, it depicts the experiences of Mexican Americans in our country, a good amount of which has to do with dealing with the injustices that Mexican Americans are subjected to and experience. It touches on the struggle of Mexican Americans to empower ourselves and move on in terms of politics. I can’t tell you what defines the art itself; art evolves.
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You can take courses in some disciplines of Chicano arts in a variety of universities across the country. There are different messages and components to Chicano art. One is that there is a deep relationship between Chicano art and the farm worker movement in our country. There is also a good amount of relationship with El Teatro Campesino, which was a theater group started in the late ‘60s and prompted a lot of theater groups that performed Chicano teatro. We often see the Virgen de Guadalupe, who is an iconic virgin in Mexican households.
Do you feel like Chicano art is underrepresented in the U.S. today?
The media has allocated some minimal attention to Chicano art and artists, primarily in the southwest in California. The Getty Museum has had exhibits of Chicano art, and so did the L..A. County Museum of Art. The Smithsonian Institution has had at least two large exhibits of Chicano art, and it is due to open another in November, “¡Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphics, 1965 to Now.”
Some may be familiar with Cheech and Chong, who were two characters in movies in the ‘70s. Cheech Marin, one of the actors, has the largest collection of Chicano art in the country. The city of Riverside, Calif., is due to open The Cheech, a new museum that will house all of Mr. Marin’s Chicano art collection, as well as other Chicano artists.
Can you talk to me about your GenteChicana/SOYmosChicanos fund?
The purpose of my fund is to bring forth recognition, practice, understanding or appreciation of Chicano art. We had a first round of funding that ended on March 31, 2020. We asked applicants to provide a description of their project and how it can improve the understanding of Chicano art; applicants do not need to be Chicano themselves. Unfortunately, because of COVID, we ended up funding only one applicant, a young Chicana filmmaker here in Milwaukee. That’s the first and only grant we gave so far, a $3,000 grant. The next cycle of funding will have a deadline of March 31, 2021, and we look forward to having many more applications and hopefully more money to distribute!
The fund is housed at the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, which can only fund 501(c)(3) organizations. The only grant that we allocated this year was sent to the Walker’s Point Center for the Arts, which is a nonprofit organization, and they in turn gave money to the recipient, Daniela Cortés, for her Mexican Ghost Stories project.
For more information or to donate to the fund, you may contact Dr. Figueroa at 414-967-1604 or figueroa@uwm.edu.
To read more Off the Cuff interviews, click here.
To read more articles by Jean-Gabriel Fernandez, click here.
