Jose Montoya, Sacramento poet, activist and artist. RIP. – Ally, Friend, Teacher.
Jose Montoya,
artist and activist, died Wed. Sept. 25, 2013 in Sacramento, California. Jose
was a teacher, a poet, and a
community activist important to the Chicano movement as it developed in the
1960s and 70’s. He was a poet
Laureate of Sacramento and a co founder of the Royal Chicano Air force- an artist collective who helped
to define Chicano art and commit their art to political involvements.
The son of farmworker champion Cesar Chavez, Paul F. Chavez, and United Farm Workers President Arturo S. Rodriguez said in a
joint statement, “We will always cherish Jose for how he inspired us as well as
so many others through his art. But we will also remember him for the countless
times when he walked picket lines, helped organize UFW events and fed the
farmworkers during every major strike, boycott and political campaign. He was
truly a servant of the farmworker movement and we will always be in his debt.”
See:
https://sites.google.com/site/chicanodigital/home/the-farmworker-movement-in-sacramento-1972-1976
Montoya influenced thousands of students
and teachers during his 27 years as a professor of art at California State
University Sacramento, as well his earlier years as a teacher in Wheatland. He was a sought after speaker on issues
related to using art in teaching.
“Jose taught us how to be bold, how to be
courageous, how to be clear, how to be strong and that example empowered many
people, generations of farmworkers who were subjugated and oppressed,” said
Juan Carrillo, former director of the California State Arts Council, who helped
Montoya co-found the RCAF. “In 1967, there was no Latino caucus in the
Legislature, no Latino political presence and Jose Montoya absolutely helped
politicize Latinos.”
In 1969, he and other Latino educators
were invited to get their master’s degrees through the Mexican American
Education Project at California State University, Sacramento. There, he and
several other Chicanos, many sons
of migrant farmworkers, formed the Royal Chicano Air Force, an artists’
collective committed to supporting the UFW while bringing art to the people.
Originally named the Rebel Chicano Art
Front, its initials led people to believe they were part of the Royal Canadian
Air Force. “I said we’re not Canadians, we’re Chicanos, but we have an air
force, we fly adobe airplanes,” Jose Montoya once said. “We wanted to be
outrageous, we didn’t want to be boring so we now had an air force we could
incorporate into the movement, which was about boycotting Safeway” to keep the
chain from selling table grapes until farmworkers’ conditions improved. “We
would show up to Safeway dressed in Air Force uniforms and driving a World War
II jeep,” which got the media’s attention, Montoya said.
See more here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_bQS_8XYAk
Jose Montoya became an organizer for the
UFW throughout the Central Valley and spent every single Friday and Saturday on
the picket line. “He held farmworkers deep in his heart and agonized over the
excruciating work they did,” said
his daughter Gina Montoya in an article in the Sacramento Bee.
José Montoya was a founding member of
Trio Casindio and the author of El Sol y
Los de Abajo and other RCAF poems.
In 1992 he published a collection of his poems and drawings In Formation: 20 Years
of Joda. He was a prolific painter and creator of
Chicano poster art.
Montoya is survived by Mary Ellen Montoya, his first wife; his second
wife, Juanita Jue ; 19 grandchildren; and one great-granddaughter.
Read the Bee story along with an excellent slide show
here.
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