Free Los Siete (1969) by Yolanda M. López

The work of Yolanda M. López serves as a tool of cultural, spiritual, and political empowerment for the Chicanx community. For Chicana feminists in particular, this work reflects the ability for Chicanas to also play a role in el movimiento despite the belief that their voices were not considered as important as others and were incapable of engaging in politically urgent and culturally relevant activism. What was breezed over in the description go this work, entitled Free Los Siete (1969), is that after being displayed at Galería de la Raza at the first exhibition of all muxeres, it was believed to have been made by a man because of its political and revolutionary representation. It is unfortunate that even in the art realm of the Chicanx movement, the creations of muxeres continued to be seen as invalid and irrelevant. However, what López reveals in all of her pieces is that the personal is political, and she has made it her life mission to ensure her familial, ancestral, and cultural background grounds her Third World Feminist lens.

As another one of my compañerxs mentioned, Free Los Siete was created in response to the case and defense of seven Latinx youths who were accused of killing a police officer. López created this poster to bring attention to the wrongful accusation and arrest of brown youth that has hxstorically plagued our communities. Using the American flag’s stripes to look like the bars of a jail cell and parts of the pledge of allegiance around the central image are intended to call-out this misbelief and mistrust in the American system’s foundational expressions of freedom and equality for all. Davalos states, “…López believed that art should serve the people” and Free Los Siete became a primary example of the way the poster was utilized by the people defending the rights of black and brown bodies in rallies, demonstrations, newspapers, etc. She cuts off the word "freedom" by only putting "free" into the work as a way of unveiling the lack of opportunity and access to freedom that is supposedly guaranteed to all in the "land of the free." Because the very foundation of the United States was based on genocide and displacement of Indigenous people and communities of color, she reveals in Free Los Siete how the state has never and will never do anything to protect and serve us as they claim. I appreciate López's ability to engage in politically urgent work and make such impactful and necessary statements through visual representation because as a Chicana, this was not always perceived or received in a positive way.