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28 REYES

relevant to the Chicano Movement. The Chicano Movement is very real in a cultural sense. Is not survival the most important thing? And what we are doing as Chicanos is preserving our culture.

° Many Chicano artists are inspired by a vast Aztec background. I don't see this in your paintings.

Chicano art is today...now.... Aztec art is not Chicano art. That is pre-Colombian art. That art is already an established iinstitution. We are not there yet...not by any means. We are just beginning to move. I deal with the brutality of now, like in my Pharr painting. That is brutality. Or my painting of the Alamo titled Sacred Conflict. The Alamo to the gabacho is one thing, but to the Chicano it means something entirely different. We can honestly say that José Ángel Gutierrez is just as great a hero as George Washington. I thing we are getting to the point of defining. We have to define institutions and how they affect us. We have to define ourselves. We have to define los vendidos, etc. I think that only if we have good definitions will we have good directions. We must have good working definitions, definitions that can be changed if they become too stiff or if they droop. By definition I'm not saying that all artists must paint alike. The greater diversity the better. We saw this diversity in the art show in San Antonio College. The expressions ranged from La Virgen de Guadalupe to abstract geometrical shapes.

° Do you work with definitions in your paintings?

Definitions equal patterns and patterns equal perspectives. Different perspectives give us better views of reality. Perhaps it's this thing about habit being human. I don't know. Definitions may help to inform or not to inform. For me it helps to inform. Thus in my painting I may paint a series that forms a pattern. However, and this is very important, the same pattern may turn itself on me and force me into intuitive things like my latest paintings that I mentioned, Barrio Dogs.

° Do you see in the Chicano artist a self consciousness because of the many pressures he has to face?

This is what I call group pressure. The good side of group pressure is that it eliminates sloppiness. However, I still am going to paint what I want. Religious problems for instance. My new series of paintings is going to hurt many people, including Chicanos. Europeans brought their religion and imposed it on us. I think Chicanos in general and the artist in particular should confront this problem. This wieght of conflict is on nobody's shoulders but ours. Now artists have to produce. What we produce is what others will look at. This is another dilemma we have to face. We cannot escape the fact that we are responsible for the art we produce. If we don't produce high products of art we have failed in our cultural commitment. I am involved in producing the art work. I could be a hard core pachuco or hippie, but I just happen to be an artist. And I will continue to be one (I cannot help it) as long as I can do something that benefits my people, the barrio.

° I know that you are a student at Trinity University. How do you relate, as an artist to that system?

Universities make you a part of the system that perpetuated and perpetuates industrialism. That is what they do. Academic freedom per se does not exist. Academia is dead in America. I think Chicanos can change this. Possibly Blacks too. But their handicap is that they are too far removed from their original home base, from their cultural ties. So we have a number of very basic things working in our favor. Universities can be used pa levantar la movida de los gabachos. This is made easier by having barrio ideologies. The conflict here is the role game of having to become an animal so that you can subvert

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Transcription Notes:
I added a few things that were missed, but other than that this document was good to be submitted.