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NO on SB1070. We Will Not Comply! Stop Juan Crow! New POSTER DOWNLOAD

I just completed this poster after yesterday's Supreme Court ruling that upheld the part of Arizona's SB1070 law, which allows police to profile by investigating people's status to go into effect. If the bill goes into effect it could only make Arizona's human rights crisis even worse. 

The President can and should intervene. Please tell President Obama to stop SB1070 by refusing to deport it's victims. Click http://bit.ly/potus1070

This poster is a collaboration between myself, Roberto Lovato, and Gan Golan. Roberto explains the context of the piece and the phrase, "Juan Crow."

As the country starts  waking up to the effects of the Supreme Court's historic decision upholding the cold heart of Arizona's SB1070 - the "papers, please" clause- we will need to understand what it means beyond Arizona; We urgently need a deeper understanding of what's happening to our country, our community; Everybody needs to understand that Jim Crow and other racism are still alive ;that it is birthing another racial era, the era of Juan Crow.

You cannot fight-and defeat-that which you cannot name or understand. As different laws with different names in different states begin rearing their ugly head, our common enemy must have a common and recognizable name.  The name that will define our common struggle is Juan Crow.

You can download this poster in high resolution by clicking here. Please share widely.

Below is also one for your facebook profile. Click on the image to see it full size and then copy to your desktop. Or you can grab it off facebook page by clicking here.

Undocumented, Queer Visual Artist and on the cover of TIME Magazine!

 

I am so proud of my mentee, Julio Salgado, who, along with Jose Antonio Vargas and other DREAMers, made the cover of this week's TIME Magazine. Check out this video where he talks about his experience as an undocumented, queer artivist. 

I met Julio Salgado last year and have since been collaborating on various projects.I believe that art and culture have a crucial role to play in transforming, redefining, and re-imagining immigration. When it comes to immigration, the discourse rarely focuses on the stories of real people trying to succeed; instead, the frame is dominated by criminality and punishment. Julio and I believe that when we share our images and tell our stories, we illustrate the human struggle and win over broad audiences. Our art work can drive ideas home in a way that is unmatched by any other medium.

Julio has used his talents to document his struggle as an undocumented youth and the struggle of the undocumented community. I have personally witnessed Julio's growth as an artist and I'm proud to support him. As an artist who was born in the U.S., I feel I have the responsiblity to support other younger artists who are most affected by the laws that I'm fighting against. I can use my American priviledge to be an ally to undocumented migrants, starting with artists.

Julio recently shared his father's reaction to him being on the cover of TIME.

“When I called my father and told him that I was going to be on the cover of TIME Magazine along with other DREAMers he began to cry. I haven’t heard my dad cry in years. In between sobs, he told me how proud of me he was. When I heard the Obama announcement, I thought of my dad and how much he has contributed to this country with his labor. Yet he will not benefit from the administrative relief. It is because of people like my father that I will continue to speak out about what it means to be an undocumented immigrant and make sure to keep politicians accountable.”

More about Julio Salgado: Julio Salgado is the co-founder of DreamersAdrift.com. His activist artwork has become a staple of the DREAM Act movement. His status as an undocumented, queer artivist has fueled the contents of his illustrations, which depict key individuals and moments of the DREAM Act movement. Undocumented students and allies across the country have used Salgado's artwork to call attention to the youth-led movement. Salgado graduated from California State Universitiy, Long Beach with a degree in journalism.

New Art Piece about Family Separation and loss of Parental Rights for Street-Art Exhibit in SF

I am part of a new exhibit titled Motion Graphics: In and Beyond the Street. The show is currently showing at Intersection For the Arts in San Francisco and "looks at street art and the practice underlying social engagement and artistic work in the public sphere."

I developed a new print for this show titled "22% of Deportee's have U.S. Citizen Children". I developed this piece in response to our country's devastating immigration policy that is separating families, traumatizing children, and creating a cycle in which parents are losing their parental rights after being deported.

I was inspired to create this piece after learning about the plight of Felipe Montes. For nine years, Felipe Montes lived and worked in North Carolina. He married a U.S. citizen, and he and his wife have three sons. But after immigration officials deported Montes in late 2010, he will likely never see his children again.

The piece depicts a mother and child separated from a father. The father is depicted as an alien, alluding to the way in which inhumane immigration policy dehumanizes people. Using words like "illegal" and "alien", all words use by the Department of Homeland Security, make it acceptable to treat these courageous human beings as second class citizens.

I'm happy to be showing this piece alongside works by Ricardo Richey with Evan Bissell, Ana Teresa Fernandez, Chad Hasegawa and Eric Staller.

Here are some photos of the show:

Exhibit Dates & Gallery Hours: June 13 - August 25, Tues.-Sat., 12-6pm FREE

Location: 925 Mission Street, Suite 109, SF CA 94103

 

Liberate Your Ass: Why Sexual Freedom Is Key To Fighting The Right - VIDEO UP!

The highly-talked about sex panel at Netroots Nation is up online!!! I was so proud (and nervous) to be a part of this panel, and now you can hear for yourself why sexual freedom is key to liberation,

Watch live streaming video from freespeechtv at livestream.com

This year, we had the first ever sex panel ever at the 7th Netroots Nation!!

This was both great and sad, because it was surprising to many of us panelists that sexual freedom was not something that had been fully incorporated into this progressive gathering, when so much of what we do in our work in some ways ties back our agency to be free, and sexually liberated.

My co-presenter, Charlie Glickman, Education Program Manager at Good Vibrations, wrote on his blog:

It’s hardly news that neo-conservative groups are waging a war on sex. But it’s often a surprise to me how rarely progressive movements integrate sexuality issues into their efforts. In my view, there is no freedom without sexual freedom. ...this is the first time that this particular topic has been presented at this event, which is in its 7th year. While I’m glad to see movement towards including issues of sexual justice, I’m surprised that it took this long, since the links between sexuality and social justice seem so clear to me.

I was on the panel speaking with Jenifer Fernandez Ancona, Elisabeth Fernandez-Kimmel, Kierra Johnson, William Winters and Charlie Glickman.

Sign On! The Cultural Community Supports Humane Immigration Solutions. TIME Mag story features undocumented artist!

Big news!! My friend, collaborator, and mentee, Julio Salgado is featured on the cover of TIME magazine today! His story and his work are mentioned in the article written by our friend, Jose Antonio Vargas. The conversation in this country about immigration is about to change! 

This proves a point that I make often, that culture is key in transforming the immigration debate and building good will for humane and just solutions to the immigration crisis.

Are you an artist, creative, writer, musician? Can you join the cultural community as we stand with Julio Salgado? 

The Culture Community Stands with Julio Salgado

“I make art for survival because it's the only way I know how to speak out and make sure that my story and the story of my community gets noticed. I knew I had to speak for myself and not let others define who I am." - Julio Salgado

click here to see video on Time’s website

Today, Time magazine becomes the first national magazine to put undocumented immigrants right on its cover, in a time when many immigrants still live in hiding. The cover story features two artists: Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Jose Antonio Vargas and artist Julio Salgado, one of the core members of CultureStrike. A young artist who is redefining the immigrant experience through posters and videos, Julio joined a CultureStrike delegation of artists witnessing the Arizona border and has been crucial in creating a CultureStrike’s national poster project that will launch later this year. A video series he helped create, “Undocumented and Awkward,” mentioned in the Time article, highlights the “painfully awkward moments” of being an undocumented immigrant--and was created at a CultureStrike residency.

We, the cultural community, stand side-by-side Julio Salgado and the millions of other undocumented individuals who are bravely fighting for dignity and acceptance. There are more than eleven million undocumented individuals, like Julio, in the United States. We believe this means there are more than eleven million stories that need to be told. In a time when over a million individuals have been deported in the last three years, Julio represents something different and inspiring: the belief that we can imagine immigrants as fellow human beings, people who belong here as much as anyone else.

Signed,

Jeff Chang, Ken Chen, Andrew Hsiao, Favianna Rodriguez - On Behalf of CultureStrike

[More Names to come]

To add your name, email your name and title to: theculturestrike [at] gmail.com

CultureStrike is an artist-led initiative that seeks to shift the national imagination on immigration through innovative and urgent collaborations between artists, writers and other cultural workers. We send writers and artists to the frontlines of the immigration civil rights battle--such as our 2011 delegation of 50 writers and artists to Arizona. At CultureStrike.org, our online magazine, we publish the best arts and culture emerging from the immigration counterculture. A collaborative project of the Citizen Engagement Lab and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, we seek to build a cultural movement on immigration.

Pics from Providence and Netroots Nation 2012! LOVED it this year!

Just left Providence last night after a week at Netroots Nation 2012, which I attended this year as an Artist-Activist-Cultural-Worker-Promoter-in-Residence.

I rolled deep to Providence with my crew to bring some much needed art and culture to one of the most important progressive gatherings in the country - Netroots Nation. They describe themselves as "a giant family reunion for the left."  Every year, thousands of bloggers, newsmakers, social justice advocates, labor and organizational leaders, grassroots organizers and online activists come together to build, learn, train, share skills, and party. In the past, art and culture haven't been a huge part of this mix, but this year, the leadership recognized this gap and invited me to contribute in a huge way. 

While I was there I spoke on three panels - including a panel on Inspiration, Agitation and Cultural Organizing - I organized an art exhibit, ran an art booth in the exhibitor space that featured not just my work but also art by other radical artists, and participated in a new event called Ignite where speakers would get to show 20 slides and talk for 20 seconds per slide (kinda like Pecha Kucha). 

Overall, the conference was freaking amazing!! And my overall time in Providence was amazing. Here are some highlights.

Above: My friends, Gan Golan and Betsy Richards, and I kicked off NN12 by dressing up as superheroes from Gan's book, Unemployed Man. I am on the left dressed as Fantasma - the first undocumented superhero!

Above: Here is Julio Salgado, the most famous undocumented artist illustrator artivist on the planet! We had just finished up setting up our sales booth at the Netroots Nation Exhibitor Booth.

Above: We started out Thursday morning with a panel: Agitation & Inspiration: The Power of Art & Cultural Organizing, which you can see streamed here.

Above: Small Money vs. Super Pacs, a cool coin installation in the hallways of NN12 by my homie, Billy Wimsatt.

Above: It's kinda hard to see, but the posters hanging in the background are part of the art exhibit we set up, featuring art about Occupy and migrant justice.

Above: While walking through the streets of Providence, I ran into the folks who do these puppets - Big Nazo!

Above & Below: One of the things that's not so great about Netroots Nation is the fee required to get in - it's cost prohibitive for lots of folks. So Julio Salgado and I were asked to host a free workshop with local youth and organizers at New Urban Arts. Our poster workshop and artist talk was a hit!

 

Pussy Power Poontang-Celebrating Patriarchy-Defeating Slut-Positive POSTERS for Free DOWNLOAD!

Here are some slut power powers for all my sisters out there! I'm reposting these pieces so that they can be shared far and wide.

Politicians and conservatives are waging an all out war on women, our bodies, our access to health, our right to birth control, and our right to free, accessible and safe abortion. Everywhere you turn, the right wing is attempting to further limit and hinder our access to our reproductive rights through anti-contraceptive measures.

This is just the latest of attacks on women, and I am fed up.

Patriarchy is destructive to society, it's a form of violence against women, and there is no place for it in contemporary culture. We have to call it out when it happens.

I decided it was time for some slut positivity and some major ass kicking of these conservative, woman-hating men. 

Please share and disseminate. High res versions available here:

• Politicians Off My Pootang (download pdf)
• I'm A Slut. I Vote. (download pdf)
• It's My Pussy. It's My Body. (download pdf)
• Yo! Pussy Power! (download pdf)