Week Three Discussion Post: Judithe Hernandez

 

Ni Una Mas! by Judithe Hernandez

    Judithe Hernandez is a Los Angeles–based mural and visual artist that rose to prominence in the seventies as a founding and contributing member of the Chicano Art and Mural Movements in Southern California. She was born in nineteen-forty-eight to Chicano parents whom had migrated to East Los Angeles just short of her birth. Upon becoming inspired by momentous Chican@ events such as the East Los Angeles Student Walkouts, Hernandez launched a quest to unite and organize Chicano artists in the region who had also begun to experience the impact of the Chican@ movement. This coalition of artist-activists sought to bring awareness to the plight of the Chican@ and Mexican people in the United States and formulate a community space where Chican@ artists were free to create and expand upon public perception and knowledge of Chican@ art. Hernandez went on to further her artistic career and involvement in the Chican@ Movement by assisting in the organization of the Chicano Moratorium and creating mural pieces that depicted the realities of Chicanos abroad in Vietnam and here in the United States. In addition, her creations presented the intent and message of the Chicano Moratorium and helped compartmentalize the concerns surrounding the disproportionate rate of Chicano deaths in Southeast Asia for individuals who had not known that this was a problem within the Chican@ community. Astonishingly, her profound commitment to the Chican@ Movement and Chican@ art led her to work with prominent figureheads such as César Chávez from the United Farmworkers Union and Luis Valdez of El Teatro Campesino. 

    Throughout the years, Hernandez has been using her work to comment on numerous social concerns plaguing both the United States and Mexico across several decades. Such concerns include the abuse and violence perpetrated against women and the persecution and oppression of Mexican and Chicano communities in the United States. Subsequently, common topics that Hernandez implements across her creations are related to women, violence, identification, sexual expression, Indigeneity, and Chicanismo. At present, Judithe Hernandez stands as one of the most impactful and significant artists of her generation. What she has done for the Chican@ community and created for Chican@ art, can never be replicated.

Official Website: https://www.judithehernandez.com

Bibliographic References: https://www.chicano.ucla.edu/files/13Hernandez_0.pdf and Walls of Empowerment: Chicano/a Indigenist Murals of California by Guisela La Torre (2008).