Writing from my perspective as a Chicana art historian, ethnic studies scholar, and activist, this commentary contemplates how art can create and foster decolonial love. I draw examples from the rich history of Chicana/o art. As embodied political subjects, Chicanx artists have been engaged in envisioning decolonial love from the beginning of the Chicano movement in the 1960s—creating art that brings historical wrongs to light, fighting back against injustice, repairing us and our community, and visualizing more just futures.1
Allow me to suggest how these ideas manifest in what has been considered the first Chicano movement mural, created by artist Antonio Bernal in 1968 for El Teatro Campesino in Del Rey, California (figs. 1 and 2).2 Painted on two wooden panels, the mural asserts the importance of the Indigenous past, proposes men and women as equal partners in revolution, and highlights Black/Brown alliances. The two compositions,...
University of California Press