In Political Solidarity

The international effects of imperialism and colonization are vital to Montoya’s activist images. Through political graphics, Chicana/o/x artists disrupt mainstream media’s version of global politics in areas such as Latin America and Asia. Provocative visual interpretations revisit the U.S. involvement in international bloodshed and missile strikes, emphasizing the breadth of attacks and questioning the turbulent realities of the nation’s hallmark patriotism. Often Chicana/o/x artists employ portraiture as a radical pedagogy by uplifting historical figures villainized by U.S. media or apoliticized for national narratives. The persistent efforts to acknowledge imperial atrocities is a subversive anti-war approach to provoke and educate viewers about silenced global histories.

Research

Jeanette B. Ruiz is an assistant professor of teaching in the UC Davis Department of Communication. She is a UC Davis CAMPOS Faculty sScholar who specializes in strategic communication with a specific interest in emerging practices and concepts in digital and social media. Currently, she is serving as the faculty lead for the UC Davis First-Gen Initiative. Most recently, she was honored with the UC Davis Distinguished Teaching Award. Ruiz’s recommendation stems from her undergraduate course on race and media, and more specifically, the often distorted manner in which the media presents global politics as is critiqued by the works in this section of the exhibition. 


Marian Schlotterbeck is an associate professor in the UC Davis Department of History specializing in modern Latin America, specifically, 20th century Chile. Her first book, Beyond the Vanguard: Everyday Revolutionaries in Allende’s Chile (University of California Press, May 2018), is about radical politics in the decade before the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship and her next book-length research project, Making Neoliberal Citizens: Childhood in Pinochet’s Chile (1973-1990), examines the Chilean military dictatorship through the lens of childhood. Professor Schlotterbeck has selected these readings to further elucidate the overthrow of the Chilean government by General Augusto Pinochet and response through graphic images.