Written by Dr. Ricardo Romo.
Jesus Barraza is a San Francisco Bay area artist, teacher and community activist. He is the co-founder with Melanie Cervantes, of Dignidad Rebelde, a community arts organization that produces art prints and teaches young people the art of printmaking. Over the past ten years Barraza has worked with Cervantes to also create political posters and multimedia videos. Barraza is currently a lecturer at UC Berkeley in the Ethnic Studies Department and has also taught Ethnic Studies and Art and Social Movements classes at California State University at Hayward and San Francisco State University. He has received many awards, including recognition by the State of California Assembly and Senate.
Barraza describes his art as, “grounded in Third World and indigenous movements that build people’s power to transform the conditions of fragmentation, displacement and loss of culture that results from this history.” Over the past twenty years Barraza has also assisted dozens of community organizations committed to social and environmental justice by designing and printing posters and prints about their cause. His silk screen art of Chicano/a cultural and political leaders have been acquired by museums, galleries and private collectors across America.
His cover image of Dolores Huerta was recently donated to the University of Texas Benson Latin American Collection by Drs. Harriett and Ricardo Romo. The Romo collection at the Benson is one of the largest Chicano and Latino print collections in America, with over 700 prints.