MUSED: LA 2 HOU | Charlene Villaseñor Black | Decolonial Love

In this special episode of the MUSED: LA 2 HOU podcast, host and producer Melissa Richardson Banks interviews photographer Luis C. Garza with Charlene Villaseñor Black, Ph.D. who is Chair and Professor of Art History in UCLA's César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies, the editor of "Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies" and the founding editor-in-chief of "Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture" (LALVC, UC Press). She publishes topics related to Chicanx studies, contemporary Latinx art, and the early modern Iberian world. 

What is decolonial love? Villaseñor Black shares that "decolonial love is a love for community and for ourselves that breaks free from coloniality, that is, the ways in which European social order, racial hierarchies, and imposed ways of knowing live on and structure our world today."

Villaseñor Black states that "decolonial love manifested in Garza’s photographs and, indeed, in the work of other Chicana/o/x artists and cultural workers from the beginning of the movement to the present day. By documenting the Mexican American experience of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s and 1970s, Garza’s images fought against biased media representation and oppressive policing tactics. By presenting the truth of the Chicano experience and by his dignified representations of our community, Garza’s photographs articulated decolonial love as they helped us visualize more just futures. This commitment to future action is central to activism and activist art."

Some of Garza's most famous photographs documented activism during the Chicano movement. However, for the exhibition, curator Armando Durón strategically paired Garza’s photographs to encourage viewers to make new connections with his more well-known images. While his couplings were often formal in nature, they fostered comparisons across differing subject matter. Scenes of protests, taking place in various locales -- from Los Angeles to New York to Uzbekistan and Budapest -- made clear the global nature of political unrest in the early 1970s

While the interview was recorded on January 21, 2023, it is a timeless conversation about Garza and the images that he took while documenting the Chicano civil rights movement, the World Peace Conference in Hungary, and the women’s movement in New York during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

"The Other Side of Memory: Photographs by Luis C. Garza" is now touring nationally:

• Loveland Museum, Colorado Jun 22–Sep 1, 2024
• Walter N. Marks Center for the Arts at College of the Desert, Apr–May 3, 2023
• Riverside Art Museum, Oct 22, 2022–Mar 19, 2023

BUY THE EXHIBIT CATALOG HERE!

Check out more in-depth articles, stories, and photographs by Melissa Richardson Banks at www.melissarichardsonbanks.com. Learn more about CauseConnect at www.causeconnect.net.

Follow Melissa Richardson Banks on Instagram as @DowntownMuse; @MUSEDhouston, and @causeconnect.

Subscribe and listen to the MUSED: LA 2 HOU podcast on your favorite streaming platforms, including Spotify, iHeart,
She is interviewed along with aphotographer in this episode.
Enjoy.

(00:53):
Welcome, this is MelissaRichardson Banks, and I'm super
excited to have in the studiotoday, at least virtually, Luis
C.
Garza.
who is my friend and awonderful photographer, and
Charlene Villaseñor Black, whois also my friend now and a
noted scholar. Charlene has justwritten an amazing essay about

(01:13):
Luis' work, which is currentlyon view at Riverside Art Museum
in an exhibition titled "TheOther Side of Memory:
Photographs Luis C. Garza.
Today, we're going to discussan essay that Charlene was
inspired to write after viewingthe exhibition in Riverside And
I really wanted to open thisfree flow conversation with the

(01:35):
two of them discussing reallythe leading topic of her essay,
which is decolonial love.
Welcome, Charlene.
Please tell me, what isdecolonial love?

Charlene Villaseñor Black (01:48):
T hank you.
I'm thrilled to be here, to bein conversation with both of you
and to have this opportunity toreflect on the wonderful
exhibition and on Luis's workover the years.
So important for the Chicanomovement or the Chicano
community and seeing.

(02:09):
The exhibition made me think ofdecolonial love, which is
something that scholars aretalking about now.
And I'm thinking of the work ofpeople like Nelson Maldonado
Torres or Yomaira Figueroa andother people.
And it is an importantdiscourse around loving each

(02:29):
other, loving our communitiesand envisioning a more just
future.
And I think that these idealsare very much in line with the
Chicano movement and aDecolonial love is a love that
queries and rejects coloniality,that rejects imposed

(02:49):
Eurocentric ideas about who weare and fights back against the
legacies of those conquests, theEuropean invasion in the 16th
century of Mexico, for example,or the double conquest that
happened to Chicanos here in theUnited States, right?
When half of Mexico was takenby the US in 1848.
So I think about the work ofChicano, Chicana, Chicanx

(03:14):
artists as being one ofarticulating this decolonial
love It's love for our communitythat sees a bright future for
us.
And it's something that goesback to the Chicano movement.

Melissa Richardson Banks (03:30):
Luis, can you respond and share a
little bit about what you werefeeling about when you read
Charlene's essay and just alittle bit thoughts with respect
to her focus?

Luis C. Garza (03:44):
My first reaction to what Charlene wrote was that
I had to read it several moretimes.
One to absorb the deep,profound meaning and thinking
behind what she was presenting.

(04:06):
and how it applied to me inparticular, of course, because
it's about the exhibition of myworks and what it stirred in her
to write that phrase and toreiterate it so many times
within her essay.

(04:28):
It struck me.
much like what Armando Duranhad struck in me when he said
accidental aesthetics.
It made me travel back in timeto my early childhood when I was

(04:51):
watching television.
And as a child, you know, wehad this 13, 15-inch TV Admiral
television screen with aphonograph.
And I was watching Westerns onthe screen.
And one of the scenes was, youknow, John Wayne in the wagon

(05:13):
train and circling up the wagontrains and the Indians riding on
their horses in war paints andwhooping and hollering and
attacking the wagon train.
And John Wayne taking carefulaim and with his rifle and
shooting at this man.

(05:33):
onslaught of Indians ridingtheir horses towards the wagon
train.
And with one bullet, 12 Indiansfall off their horses.
And Papa threw his chanclas atthe television set and
said "damn liars.
" And I looked at Papa and at avery young age, I understood

(05:58):
without being able to understandintellectually.
But the mere act of what he wasdoing and calling it a lie was
decolonial.
That struck me.
That struck me in all the yearsthat followed in terms of

(06:19):
Papa's assessment of speakingabout American empire, you know,
entering into the affairs ofother peoples and other
countries.
And again, not having theacademic chops, the education on
my part to totally understandor to verbalize it in the manner

(06:44):
that Charlene has.
And my, My sense of experiencesand journey following as a
young teenager, a young man,entering the military service,
being in the Bay of Pigs in Cubaduring that period of time when
I was in the military, andcertainly coming out here to Los

(07:07):
Angeles and becoming involvedin the Chicano movement, all of
that struck me in what Charlenewas writing about.
It struck me as I began to growand began to educate myself.
I'm not so prone to academics,but I am a quick learner, much

(07:34):
like my father, who had only afew years of education in Mexico
and in South Texas.
But he was an avid reader ofhistory.
And it was also anotherinstance that struck me in
Decolonial Love.
When I came home fromelementary school and I was, I

(07:56):
don't know, six, seven, eightyears old, and I ran to Papa and
I said, Mira, Papa, Papa, wejust learned about Texas and
Mexico and the U.S.
and how Texas became part ofthe U.S.
And he pulled me aside.
put me on his knee, took outthis big history book, and

(08:19):
started to read to me.
Esto es la historia about theMexican-American War, mijo.
And he explained as best hecould to a young little boy.
And he said, the $10, $15million that the United States
gave to Mexico was blood money.
Fue dinero de sangre.

(08:41):
And again, he went on and on.
And so the next day when I wentback to school and we were
continuing with the classroominstruction on how America
expanded, a Reader's Digestversion, of course, and I raised
my hand to tell the teacher,teacher, teacher, my father said

(09:05):
that it's blood money.
And she looked at me and shesaid, sit down.
down and shut up well all ofthis flashed in my mind when i
read charlene's essay because inever put it in i never heard it

(09:29):
in those terms i'm justfamiliarizing myself with the
term decolonial love adecolonial politicalization,
acculturation, et cetera.
And there's so many otherexamples which just came to my
mind when I read Charlene'sessay.
So it's profound in thereaction that I'm receiving from

(09:52):
Charlene, Armando, yourself,Melissa, and others who are
looking at my work andinterpreting it in a way that
I had not verbalized.
I visualized, but I had notverbalized.

Melissa Richardso (10:11):
Charlene, you start your essay by asking this

two questions (10:14):
How did the activists, artists, and other
cultural workers of the Chicanomovement enact decolonial love?
And then the question ofdid photography possess a

(10:36):
particular power to envision andmanifest this feeling and
thereby heal our community?
These are the guiding questionsof your essay that led you to
being inspired after reviewingLuis's exhibition.
And you make a compellingargument of what you see
manifested in his photographs.

(10:57):
Can you discuss that?

Charlene Villaseñor Black (11:00):
Yes, thank you so much for that
question.
Thank you, Luis, for yourincredibly thoughtful response.
I truly believe that artists...
articulate ideas likedecolonial love or other
theoretical constructs beforeacademics do.
I see it manifested in the workof artists and photographers in

(11:22):
the 60s and the Chicanomovement.
This is well before scholarsstart writing about it.
There's a way that they cancapture things that can't quite
be said yet in words or writtenabout.
And that is what struck me whenI saw the exhibition, that this
is a manifestation ofdecolonial love, of a love for

(11:42):
our community.
So there is a particular powerthat artists have to do this.
And I wondered aboutphotography, too, and it has to
do with the kinds of photographsthat Luis took at that moment.
I'm thinking about regular newscoverage of the Chicano
movement, as I understand itfrom historical sources, that

(12:06):
these photographs that Luistook, they rejected that
standard news coverage to say,there's another version of this
story that's about policebrutality.
That's about violence.
That's about the dignity of ourcommunity fighting for civil
rights.
So that is an expression ofdecolonial love.

(12:26):
And that's what I saw in thatexhibition.
So those two things reallystruck me that he was able to
articulate visually.
Right.
Artists are brilliant visualgeniuses.
That's how they think.
I think in terms of texts andwords, able to articulate
visually.
these ideas before we couldwrite about them, really.

(12:46):
So I guess those were thethings I thought about when I
was looking at the exhibition,these different visions of the
protests that were happening,visions of police violence and
images of our community that arejust beautiful.
They're just the most beautifulWe see ourselves there in a

(13:08):
dignified and beautiful way.
So that's what I was thinkingwhen I saw his show.

Melissa Richardson Banks (13:14):
I saw that you mentioned to me when
you and I connected after yourfirst visit.
Actually, I think after you hadgone multiple times and I was
really, I was just, I feltreally excited to hear and just
overwhelmed and under, maybejust excited to hear that you
felt so deeply about thisexhibition and Luis's work

(13:36):
because I've worked with Louisenow for over 20 years and it's,
his work has been so powerfulfor me.
And the fact of someone withyour level of scholarship and
your, expertise to see all ofthe things in the work that just
validated it for all of us.
And you're allowing thatcredibility and helping us

(13:56):
spread the word.
And I think that's reallyamazing.
I'm curious because how youfelt about the strategic
pairings that Armando Durón ascurator did with Louise's
photographs, because thesearen't Luis' photographs are not
just the Chicano movement inSouthern California.

(14:17):
He is what I always say, kindof like, where's Waldo.
I mean, he's in, he seems to bewhen you go back, it's like
going back and seeing this filmand, and in a time machine.
And it seems like he'sstrategically in key places,
documenting key movements in NewYork.
And then he's at the worldpeace conference in, in Hungary.
And I, And I really loved howArmando Durón curated the show

(14:42):
to kind of bring these together,because what it revealed to me
was just how it was happeningall over the world and how it's
still happening today.

Charlene Villaseñor (14:55):
Thank you.
I want to say that.
I came to the exhibitionknowing his photographs as
important documents of theChicano movement, and I've shown
them in class.
They're really importantcanonical images.
Of course, there was also theexhibition at the Autry Museum
in Los Angeles and the La Razacatalog, right?

(15:16):
And that made, I think, hiswork and the work of other La
Raza photographers remarkable.
well known or better known thanit had been.
And of course, I was alsoworking at the Chicano Studies
Research Center at UCLA.
And so they had acquired thatarchive.
So I want to make sure I creditpeople I've learned from in
addition to the photographer.
But I love your question aboutthese strategic pairings.

(15:39):
And it really struck me in theshow, like what a wonderful
curator Armando Durón is andwhat a great eye he has.
And I loved how the images werepaired to make connections and
to really make legible to us asviewers, the connections that

(15:59):
Luis, the photographer saw thathe intuited that he was
suggesting to us through visualmeans.
So at first I was like, hmm,the connections look formal.
But then I was thinking tomyself, well, what does that
mean?
I mean, how does that producemeaning?
How do these formalsimilarities between the
photographs produce meaning?
And it became clear to me thatLuis's photographs were

(16:20):
suggesting the commonalitiesbetween struggles for justice
around the world, that theChicano movement was linked to
world peace movement, tofeminist protests and New York
City, to Black civil rightsmovement, to the struggles of
LGBTQ people here in LA.
So when I saw these formalsimilarities, it enabled me to

(16:45):
realize that, to reallyunderstand how his photographs
produced meaning.
And thank goodness for thecurator, right, who brought
those connections to visibilityfor us.
So I thought it was awonderfully curated show.
And of course, deriving fromthese incredible photographs.

Melissa Richardson Banks (17:07):
I want to ask Luis to share a little
bit about how he documented manyof these images.
There's an instinctiveness thatI see in his work.
And I'm a photographer as well.
Sometimes I think there's aninnate feeling that we're seeing
something, but we don't reallyrealize what we see until later.
And I'm always amazed with himbecause he shot on film.

(17:29):
And here, later in life, I'mshooting digitally.
And I can see the immediacy ofwhat's happening.
What's amazing to me is he'sshooting on film and he's doing
multiple shots.
and not knowing what hecaptured until much later.
And sometimes even much later,meaning 50, 60 years later,

(17:50):
because when I was editing thebook, I was doing fact-checking
of some of the pieces.
And one particular piece comesto mind, and that was Cooper's
Donuts.
And I think at the time, so he–it's almost like he
instinctively knew that Cooper'sDonuts was part of a movement,
if you will, because it was–they captured a really important

(18:13):
moment in time that I think hewas looking at it from the
restaurant and was walking by,but it really was, Cooper's
Donut really was, it wasfrequented by gay, trans, and
queer Angelenos.
It is placed in the exhibit andin the catalog next to Another

(18:37):
important work by Luis Garza, WeWill Not Be Intimidated.
And even Armando didn't know atthe time that Cooper's Jonas
was part of this until we lookedat the fact check.
And then we're like, oh my God,how did Luis know to shoot that
and document it?
How did Armando know toinstinctively put it together?
And actually, when you look atit now and you step back, it's

(18:58):
an amazing pairing.
And I don't know if you want toaddress that first, Charlene,
what your thoughts when you sawthat, and then maybe Luis...
Maybe you could share a littlebit about when you documented
those two images and here theyare together.

Charlene Villaseñor Black (19:09):
I'm happy to start very briefly and
just say to reiterate thatartists sense, intuit, and see
things with this kind ofbrilliant visual intelligence
that they have before.
And they do it in an instant,right?
Before I can think about it.
write about it, knock out somepros on the subject.

(19:31):
So that's what really struckme, was that he did see the
commonalities across thesevarious movements.
And it comes through in the wayhe composes the shot, the way
he frames the shot, what hechooses to shoot.
And these are instantaneousdecisions, I think.
But I think he can tell us moreabout his process.

Luis C. Garza (19:54):
And Regards to your comment, Charlene, and to
yours, Melissa, I think a lothas to do with my background
coming out of New York City, myexposure to a multicultural
ethnic environment.
Remember, my family is fromnorthern Mexico, south Texas.

(20:18):
They migrated to New York inthe 1920s.
There are very few Mexicans, ifat all.
My family established acolonia.
So it was, looking back, it'san interesting growth process.
I'm raised amongst Irish,Jewish, Polish, German, Black,

(20:40):
Boricua, you name it, it'sinternational in the streets of
New York.
But inside the house, it'sMexican.
My father hardly spoke anyEnglish except to tell you how
he might feel.
My mother was bilingual and mybrothers and sisters, of course,
were all bilingual.
But my exposure to the streetssensitized me to people and to

(21:06):
their backgrounds, whoever theymight be, whatever their
religious preferences or sexualpreferences or their state of
mind.
might be.
In that compressed environmentof New York, chicken coops,
apartment buildings, peoplecrushed upon each other.

(21:29):
I saw the best and the worst ofpeople living in those
environments.
Coming out to Los Angeles, Inever saw so many Mexicans in my
life.
There was new experience.
Being parachuted into theChicano movement when I was just
beginning to pick up a cameraand photographing gave me a

(21:53):
direction.
My razón de ser, as Melissa andI like to say, it gave me a
purpose and it was a trainingground.
It was a training ground thatopened up a pathway, a pathway
that I continue to follow tothis day.
despite all the bends andcurves in the river and those

(22:16):
experiences, those journeys thatI photographed.
Instinctual, yes.
Gut, yes.
Heart, yes.
Intellect, yes.
All of those are combined, asyou say, Charlene, as you say,
Melissa.
It's instantaneous.
There are times when you havethe moment to compose, and there
are other times when you justsimply compose.

(22:37):
There's no thought process.
But there is a sense of how doI frame this?
How do I compose this shot?
As you say, Charlene, I...
I was fortunate and wasmentored by a man by the name of
Sam Kwong, who was a commercialphotographer prior to entering
into the Chicano movement.

(22:57):
It was he who gave me the basicknowledge of composition, of
darkroom work, of indoor-outdoorcommercial photography.
And then the street photographyjust kicks in automatically
because that's what it was withLa Raza.
Now, La Raza also was...
in terms of storyline andcreating stories that reflect

(23:22):
our community, that were ofconcern to our community,
provided me the opportunity todo a life-look magazine approach
to storytelling.
The Mexican novela of photocomics was able to build the
story.
So you get a sense of, okay,what are you writing about that

(23:45):
I can photograph that cancomplement what you're writing
about and vice versa.
So this was also helpful interms of learning photography.
Looking to the masters, AlvarezBravo, Lola Alvarez Bravo,
Gabriel Figueroa,Cartier-Bresson, Dorothea Lange,
Gordon Parks, et cetera.

(24:06):
So many people who I would lookto, Akira Kurosawa and Japanese
filmmakers post-World War II,Sergei Eisenstein, and so many
other cinematographers who Iwould look to in terms of their
work, their lighting, the Germanexpressionists of the 1930s,
the black and white films thatgave me a sense of, okay, I'm

(24:31):
dealing with black and whitefilm.
How do I do this?
How do I capture the shadows,you know?
So I got deeper into myphotographic work.
Once you master the technical,which, you know, takes time,
it's like any discipline.
You gotta practice, practice,practice, okay?

(24:51):
Melissa, you've taken thousandsand thousands of shots.
You've improved upon your ownwork by looking at your work and
saying, wait a minute, I couldhave done it this way.
I gotta go back.
I've got to take it at thistime of day and that time of
day, et cetera.
So you begin to get into yourwork.
It becomes zen.
You are one with.

(25:13):
as you, Charlene, with thewritten word, as you, Melissa,
with all the work that you do inso many different phases.
And I want to thank you bothfor taking the time to
investigating my work andbreaking it down in a manner
that I find absolutelydelightful.
I have never felt so much love,so much affection, and a grown

(25:36):
boy needs this.
Thank you.

Melissa Richardson Banks (25:42):
You know, Luis, there's something
that Charlene talks about in heressay for the book.
And also, there's an articlethat is going to be an Aztlan
journal.
And Charlene, please share thename of the full journal,
because I don't know if I haveit correct.
What is it again?
It's Aztlan, a journal?

Charlene Villaseñor Black (25:59):
Yeah, so I'm publishing a different
version of this essay, but someof the same thoughts in Aztlan,
a journal of Chicano studies.
which is published at UCLA andit's the flagship journal of
the...
field.
And I'm thrilled to bepublishing that in spring of
2023, I believe.

(26:19):
And it's a different take onthis issue of decolonial love in
this photography.
And I did want to respond tosomething that we said that I'm
happy that he's feeling the loveafter all these years.
But what incredible love you'vemade us feel through those

(26:39):
photographs and how proud weare.
And what an impact thosephotographs have on my students
when I show them thosephotographs and on me.
So I want to thank you for thisincredible act of love you
extended to all of us in the

Melissa Richardson B (26:54):
community.
And if I could say that's agreat segue into talking about
the breadth of his work, becauseyou mentioned not only is he
sharing this, you know, thesympathy and the understanding
of the Chicana, Chicano, Chicanxcommunity from his own vantage
point.
It's, you know, ranging fromthese protests and

(27:15):
demonstrations and movements,but he's also goes and you see
him doing very wonderfulportrayals with children and
that.
And I'm curious.
I'm curious what your thoughtswere with that.
That really kind of ran thegamut, if you will, in terms of
what he is able to share.
Is

Luis C. Garza (27:34):
that for me or Charlene?

Melissa Richardson Banks (27:41):
That's a good question.
So let's discuss a coupleexamples of that.
You know, some of your more–there's one that you recently
did.
It was talking about homeboysand then– Ijamia, I believe it's
called.
And just those are positionedtogether.
Tell us a little bit aboutthat.

(28:01):
Homeboys is two teenage boysand then, you know, the father
and the young daughter.

Luis C. Garza (28:06):
Homeboys has become quite iconic.
It became a street banner forthe Autry Museum La Raza
exhibition.
And it was first published inLa Raza, magazine, 1971, 72, or
70?
I'm not quite...
72, I think it was.

(28:28):
And immediately, Corky Gonzalezpublished his work Yo Soy
Joaquin, I Am Joaquin, and onthe hardcover Bantam book
edition used my homeboy'sphotograph, the requested it and

(28:50):
I said, yeah, sure.
And that was the first timethat my photograph received
publication and a major epicpoem of Corky Gonzalez, 1972.
So it was quite an honor.
And within the poem itself,there were any number of other
photographic works by differentartists, photographers that were

(29:14):
included.
But Homeboys became the iconicimage beginning there.
And that thereafter, it wasrevived here and there with
different publications and suchlike that.
But it wasn't until the La Razaexhibition that it really was

(29:36):
launched.
And throughout the city, therewere banners of homeboys and a
few other images from theexhibition, to which when I
first saw it waving in thestreet, I damn near stopped
traffic, pulled out my camera tophotograph the banner.
I was stunned.
I didn't know that they weredoing that.

(29:58):
Amy Scott said, well, it's agreat image.
We're using it.
She says, you've got nothing tosay about it.
And that's what happened.
So it was complimentary in thatsense.
And so many other images fromLa Raza.
La Raza was the king tut ofexhibitions for the Chicano

(30:19):
community within the Gettypresentation of Pacific Standard
Time, LALA.
It was the longest runningexhibition.
exhibition a year and a half.
Over a quarter of a millionpeople walked through the doors
of the Autry over that timeperiod and countless hundreds of
thousands through the internet.
It was the greatest exposure ofChicano work and photography

(30:42):
that we have known up until thattime, and still to this day.
It's a hard one to top.
I am proud to have been a partof it.
The backstory to putting ittogether is a whole other
novella that we'll get into someyear over a case of wine,
because that's what it's goingto take.
It's a hell of a story.

(31:03):
And the Autry Museum itself, intransitioning to doing this and
making the decision to do this,it was Rick West, Jr., who
became the director, and he's ofindigenous background from the
Smithsonian in WashingtonMuseum, who came on as director,

(31:25):
and Amy Scott took over thehead of curatorial
responsibilities at the AutryMuseum.
So when we did the exhibition,they committed to it.
And it changed them forever,just as Siqueiros in L.A.,
Censorship Defined did a decadeearlier between me and Melissa.

(31:48):
It changed them in terms ofthere's a demographic shift
that's taken place.
Let's get beyond myphotographs.
Let's get in terms of theimpact.
that Charlene and Melissa, youare talking about, much like
what Melissa, you have done withCheech and his exhibition,
Traveling the United States ofAmerica.
We are making an impact throughthe arts.

(32:12):
We are showing the value of ourwork.
And that value of work goes tothe love that Charlene speaks
of, that pride.
of who we are, what we are,what we've contributed, what we
continue to contribute, and whatwe will not be held back from
saying.
Most important, we havesomething to say.

(32:34):
Right, Melissa?
Right, Charlie?
We do.
You're damn right, and we ain'tshutting up.
Okay?
That's most important.
I think that also emanates frommy photographs.
I'm the fly on the wall.
with a camera.
Before I could articulate, backin those days, I visualized.

(32:56):
I articulated through myphotographs.
I learned how to speak throughanother mentor of mine who was
most important, which was MargotAlbert, who was the founder of
Plaza de la Raza.
She mentored me as well.
It was profound.
She changed my life.
she gave me a discipline intothe arts that I never had

(33:21):
before.
As rough and odd as I wascoming out of New York, she had
patience with me.
And, you know, she...
Well, that's a whole othernovella as well.
But it's those people in yourlife that come into your life
that if you take time and...

(33:44):
Put yourself aside.
Put your arrogance aside.
Put your stupid side aside andput on a smart cap and realize
that there are people who canhelp you and teach you and guide
you and open yourself up to itand be receptive.
Face yourself.
Face the fact that you don'tknow nothing and you've got to

(34:07):
learn and you've got to submitto learning.
And that's what I did.
despite the stubbornness thatpersisted in me, that's what I
did.
And 50 years later, it showsthat it had an impact.

Melissa Richardson Ba (34:26):
Charlene, you make a conclusion or a
supposition after multiple timesof viewing Louise's work, both
at Riverside Art Museum and evenearlier at the Autry Museum.
You state this kind ofreally...
popped out at me and you usedtwo descriptor words.
One is retrospective and theother is perspective.

(34:48):
And I am curious what broughtyou to that point of view when
you look at his photographs,which were largely taken during
what the late 60s and early 70s.
And how does it bring to thefuture?
Yes.

Charlene Villaseñor Black (35:05):
Thank you for asking that.
I was thinking about thisconcept of futurity and how
photographs document thisearlier moment, but also help us
create a more just future.
And those two words,retrospective, prospective, come
from a book entitled Futurityby Amir Eshel.

(35:26):
And Eshel's writing aboutHolocaust memorials.
So I was very much interestedin reading about his take on
these Holocaust memorials andabout how certain memorials
incorporate the element ofchoice in the way you view the

(35:48):
work.
And that element of choice isthere in the exhibition, the way
we photograph, the way we lookat those photographs.
And that element of choicegives us agency, one can argue,
right?
Agency in terms of what kind offuture do we envision?
What kind of future are wegoing to create?
So that's what I was thinkingabout.
Yes, these photographs areretrospective.

(36:08):
They're documenting the Chicanomovement and other social
justice movements around theworld.
But they're also providing us ascript and a way forward.
They're helping us envision,visualize this more just future
that I believe was bound up indecolonial love.
And the issue of the childrenand the families that are

(36:30):
represented in those photographsfor me is key because that is
our future, right?
Our families, our children,they are the future.
And there was something sobeautiful about the homeboy.
I mean, think about how thepolice think of young Chicano
men or think about or youngblack men would be another

(36:50):
powerful example that we'rethinking about the United
States.
Think about I love thatphotograph of a Chicano man with
his daughter.
Think about attitudes towardChicano men in the United
States.
And here's this beautiful,tender image of a father loving
his daughter, the futureembodied in her.
And I just was really reallystruck by how many photographs

(37:14):
of children there were in the LaRaza show and in Luisa's work
overall.
And thinking about this is anembodiment of hope that comes
right out of the Chicanamovement.

Melissa Richardson Banks (37:27):
Go ahead, Luisa.
Do you want to say something?
You're frozen.
Try it again.

Luis C. Garza (37:32):
It's...
It's those moments capture.
There's a spirituality.
It's instantaneous.
It's in the eyes.
If you look at thosephotographs, it's in the eyes.
The Ijamia, it's in the eyes.

(37:52):
The little girl in the halfshadow of the car with an ice
cream cone and ice cream on herlips and the father laughing.
looking at me, you know,protectively of his daughter.
You know, immediately.

Melissa Richardson Bank (38:18):
Louise, I want you to go back.
Louise, I need you to repeatthat because it's going to be
lost in the recording.
There was a glitch.
So you mentioned the father andlook in the eyes.
Start from there.

Luis C. Garza (38:32):
It's in the eyes.
When you look at homeboys, it'sin the eyes as they look at me
deeply.
I

Charlene Villaseñor Black (38:46):
mean, I was thinking about maybe
these are not...
I don't know.
I was thinking about...
his use of light, which is somoving, or if you could maybe
say a little bit more about theformal choices that he makes
instantaneously, would thatbe...
something and I can couch it ina better question.
Maybe would that be, I mean, Idon't know.

(39:08):
I feel like maybe thediscussion of children and
families might be in the eyes ofbetter place to end the
recording, but I am curiousabout, um, he, he, Luis, you
mentioned the light a littlebit, but I'd like to maybe go
back to that if we could dothat.
And I apologize.
I'm trying to get rid of thebackground noise in my house.
It's, I hope you can edit itout.
So, um, but maybe, um, I wantedto circle back to the question

(39:34):
of creating these photographs.
And Luis, you mentioned light.
And I'm so struck by your useof light in these photographs
and also the relationshipbetween foreground and
background and the way youmarshal detail in certain parts
of the photograph.
Thank you so much.

(40:03):
captured in your finalphotographs?

Luis C. Garza (40:26):
You have to, as a photographer in your training,
a sense of where the lightsource is.
Where is it coming from?
How best to utilize it within aphotograph?
There are times when you havethe ability to position yourself
for the best light possible forwhat it is that you're
photographing.
Other times you do not.
You have to utilize what it isthat you have in front of you

(40:49):
before it disappears.

Melissa Richardson Ba (40:51):
Charlene, In your article, you end with
some thoughts.
You end with a question.
And the question is, whatfuture will we choose?
And I'd love to know how youwould respond to that and how
you would share.
What future will we choosebased on looking at Louise's

(41:13):
photographs?

Charlene Villaseñor Black (41:15):
Such an important question.
You know, the future is in ourhands now.
institutional structures ofcoloniality and racism
notwithstanding.
I do believe in our power tochange our future, to enact our
future.
to create a more hopeful futurefor all of us.
And I'm thinking about the waysthat Luisa's photographs did

(41:39):
that by suggesting theinterlinked nature of global
political movements byvisualizing black-brown
alliances in LA, by highlightingwomen's fight for equality.
Luisa Garza's photographsprovide a blueprint for us
really for moving forward.
And also thinking about theaccidental aesthetics that, the

(42:01):
curator Doron talks about, thatconnected these paired images,
those accidental aestheticsvisualize this argument.
They visualize the path forwardfor us.
So it remains up to us to acton these suggestions, to make
these visualizations of a newway of being more fully human,

(42:22):
of enacting decolonial love inour communities, indeed around
the world, a lived reality.
So that's what I see as ourfuture.

Melissa Richardson Banks (42:32):
Well, Charlene, thank you so much for
being here, and thank you somuch for writing about Louise's
work.
And Louise, any final thoughtsyou'd like to share with
Charlene?

Luis C. Garza (42:42):
Yes.
In regards to that message, theuniversal message of my work
that you receive out of it, I'mphotographing at a time when the
world is in such conflict inthe 60s and 70s.

(43:05):
I'm traveling to all thesedifferent countries with a sense
of awareness of the politicsand the conflicts that are going
on at that time.
I'm also aware now of how muchof my work has yet to be seen
that I documented.
And that only a handful ofthose images are within this

(43:28):
exhibition.
We have 7,000 to 10,000 moreimages.
And if this is a reaction tojust...
This exhibition of 66 images,well, wait till you see the
other 10,000.
It's quite a bit of work.
And so that's the next projectthat Melissa and I are working
on, along with Armando Dron, andwe welcome your input to that

(43:50):
effort, Charlene, becausethere's a lot more in terms of
futurity.
How do you pronounce that word?
Futurity.
Futurity.
There you go.
There you go.
Sounds like...
Anyway.
Yeah, there's so much more.

(44:11):
So I look forward to being ableto unravel more and more of my
work because I got a dozen otherexhibitions within the 10,000
images that I have.
And so I would look forward toyou curating the next show.

Charlene Villaseñor Black (44:25):
Thank you so much.
I'm so grateful for theopportunity to talk with you
and...
about your work and I'mgrateful for your generosity.
And Melissa, thank you so muchfor this chance to reflect on
these important photographs andhow we can make a better world
going forward.

Melissa Richardson Banks (44:47):
I appreciate your time and I
appreciate the new wordfuturity, which again, I love
that the considering the pastwith the potential to create.
And so I leave that word forall of us to embrace and look
forward to this element ofchoice.
And thank you for sharing thatwith us today.

(45:17):
We'll see you next time.