Royal Chicano Air Force
The Royal Chicano Air Force is a Sacramento, California-based art collective, founded in 1970 by Ricardo Favela, José Montoya and Esteban Villa. It was one of the "most important collective artist groups" in the Chicano art movement in California during the 1970s and the 1980s and continues to be influential into the 21st century.
History
Founding and name
In 1969 José Montoya moved to Sacramento to pursue a master's degree at CSU Sacramento. He and newly hired art professor Esteban Villa, who had founded the Mexican American Liberation Art Front, a Chicano movement group founded in Oakland with Montoya's brother Malaquias, Manuel Hernandez and Rene Yañez, became active and soon created a circle of artists and activists interested in political and cultural work. The Rebel Chicano Arts Front, or RCAF, was founded by Montoya, Villa, and their students to foster the arts in the Chicano/Latino community, to educate young people in arts, history and culture, promote political awareness, and to promote support for César Chávez and the United Farm Workers in the heavily agricultural Sacramento-Davis area. Regarding its name, one day when someone asked if "RCAF" meant the "Royal Canadian Air Force", one of the artists jokingly responded, "No, it means the Royal Chicano Air Force!" From then on, the artists used the "Air Force" motif in their artworks, programs, and activities.Activities
Through the organizational framework of a collective, artists and community members established a silk screen operation to create multiples of images promoting art, cultural activities, community events, and political action. The work of Jose Guadalupe Posada, a Mexican printer of the late 1800s and early 1900s, inspired the artists for this work. At the same time, with the example of the great Mexican muralists, the artists undertook mural painting to bring cultural images and history to a larger audience. The organization grew to the point where a need for a space for artists was planned. The RCAF established the Centro de Artistas Chicanos moving from temporary quarters in homes, garages and La Raza Bookstore to Holy Angels School at 7th and T Streets. Later, a space was established on Folsom Blvd. and finally a center on Franklin Blvd. These spaces allowed for continual meetings, planning of events, workshops, studio activity and freedom to work around the clock. First, Max Garcia took on the directorship, followed by Gina Montoya and Ricardo Favela. Thousands of posters were created over the years with designs from multiple artists. Murals were painted throughout Sacramento as well as Chicano Park in San Diego and in Washington and Oregon. Through the university, Jose Montoya, Esteban Villa and, later, Ricardo Favela, taught a generation of young artists the techniques of silk screen, muralism, drawing, and painting. At Moses Lake, Washington Community College, Lorraine García-Nakata taught ceramics, painting and drawing to young students of color. Jose Montoya went on to establish the Barrio Art Program, representing an effort to reduce barriers between the CSU campus and the Alkalai Flats community. The Barrio Art Program brought young people and senior citizens together with aspiring teachers in the university's teacher training courses to learn to integrate the arts with education. The program continues to this day at the Washington Neighborhood Center located in downtown Sacramento at 16th and D Streets. Other RCAF artists, like Juanishi Orosco, Armando Cid and Rudy Cuellar taught there as well as in other community settings. Armando Cid and Juan Cervantez became artist facilitators in the Arts in Corrections Program teaching art and bringing guest artists to adult inmates. Lorraine García-Nakata also became Lead Artist at San Quentin Prison teaching visual art to inmates and she also directed twelve other cross-disciplinary artists who taught additional workshops in literature, music, visual arts, and theatre. The RCAF had also a history of bringing the arts to youth offenders within the California Youth Authority, specifically at the reform school known as the Preston School of Industry in Ione, CA.La Raza Bookstore and Galeria Posada
Through the efforts of RCAF members and Sacramento State students, Phillip "Pike" Santos and Louie "the Foot" Gonzalez, La Raza Bookstore was established in 1972. The inaccessibility of published works about or by Chicanos and Native Americans led to this effort. The Bookstore was located at 1228 F Street, Sacramento. In 1980, a gallery was added and the name was changed to La Raza / Galeria Posada. The RCAF artists were featured in exhibitions, but perhaps more importantly it became the exhibition space for countless numbers of Chicana/o and Native American visual artists. As a community bookstore and gallery, it became an active center for Chicana/o, Latina/o, and Native American art, poetry and music. Beginning with Phillip Santos, the organization was administered by Tere Romo, Josie S. Talamantez, Armando Cid, Victoria Plata, Luis Chabolla, Marisa Gutierrez, Francisca Godinez, and Marie Acosta. In 2014, La Raza/Galeria Posada ceased to exist.Music
Through its work in organizing exhibitions, mercados, dances, and cultural celebrations, the role of music became an important component of the RCAF. Freddie Rodriguez established the Royal Chicano Air Force Band, an ensemble performing a variety of genres from cumbias to blues. The RCAF Band featured lead singer Gloria Rangel who was later joined by her sister Irma "Cui Cui" Rangel. The band performed throughout Northern and Central California. The effort was successful in crystallizing the sounds of the barrio and taking the message of the RCAF to the people. Freddie's RCAF Band created, wrote, and performed a Chicano rock opera "Xicindio" in 1980 at the Sacramento Community Theatre for a national conference of bilingual educators that was later aired on PBS. The band eventually broke up with Freddie Rodriguez remaining in Sacramento where illness took his life. Gloria Rangel also died shortly after the band broke up but had returned to Los Angeles. Irma Rangel continues to perform and record under her name. Others, most notably Jose Montoya and Esteban Villa continued to play corridos and ballads playing their guitars. With the arrival of maestro Rudy Carrillo, the quality of performance grew and original music was composed leading to the establishment of El Trio Casindio—a four or more sized ensemble. An album was recorded and released entitled "All Day Music". More on this below.Joe Serna">Joe Serna Jr.">Joe Serna
Another important alliance came with the work of Joe Serna, Jr. Joe and his family had returned to Sacramento in 1968 from service in the Peace Corps in the mountains of Guatemala. His interest in political change was in his core. He had been a child in a farmworker family and his commitment to work with Cesar Chavez and the United Farmworkers came early. He joined with the RCAF to further that work. The RCAF embraced Joe and soon thereafter worked with him to carry out the work of organizing and engaging in local political campaigns leading to the election of the first Mexican American to the City Council in a century. Joe Serna taught political courses at CSUS and eventually worked for the Lieutenant Governor, Mervyn Dymally before he embarked on his own political career. He ran for and became a Sacramento city councilman. Later he became the mayor of Sacramento until his death by cancer in November, 1999. His wife, Isabel Hernandez, also an ardent member of the RCAF circle since the 1970s died a year after Joe from cancer as well.Impact
Members of the RCAF have worked as educators in all levels of education: elementary, high school, community college and university; they have taught in prisons, youth correctional facilities, neighborhood community centers and cultural facilities. They have served as artists in residence for the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission and the California Arts Council. They have served as board members and trustees of many arts organizations including La Raza Galeria Posada, the SMAC, the San Francisco Arts Commission, the Western States Arts Federation, the Concilio de Arte Popular and the Commission to Study the Potential Creation of the National Museum of the American Latino.Two special major collections of RCAF posters have been donated by Ricardo Favela to the CSU Sacramento Archives and Special Collections Department and to CSU San Jose. These Favela collections will provide academics, researchers and community members a valuable visual art resource for the future. The majority of their other posters, photographs, personal papers and organizational materials have been donated by Favela and various members of the RCAF to the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives at the Donald Davidson Library at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Colección Tloque Nahuaque.
Promotional activities
The RCAF began operating out of the Washington Neighborhood Center and frequently held events at Sacramento's Southside Park. To fund their activities and to support the farmworkers, they held dances, performances, and other fundraisers, for which they created promotional posters that visually incorporated the themes of the Chicano Movement. They also received funding support from the Washington Neighborhood Center and California State University, Sacramento.The RCAF painted murals throughout Sacramento, as well as several in San Diego's Chicano Park and one in Burley, Idaho. Community art workshops included the Barrio Art Program and the Anciano Art Project, for children and the elderly, respectively. For high school and college students, there were workshops in silkscreening and muralism.
The members of the RCAF did not restrict their activities to the arts. Inspired by the free breakfast programs of the Black Panther Party, they and other activists such as Jennie Baca and Rosemary Rasul implemented the Breakfast for Niños program for impoverished schoolchildren in the Sacramento area. Members of the RCAF also established a book store that would become La Raza Bookstore that would eventually be known as La Raza Galeria Posada still operating in Sacramento. The RCAF, under the directorship of Gilbert Gamino, ran an automotive repair cooperative called Aeronaves de Aztlán.