Defiance and pride in Chicano Camera Culture

Skyrocketing to fame in the late 1970s, comedian Cheech Marin parlayed his position as one half of beloved stoner duo Cheech & Chong to become one of the world’s leading proponents of Chicano (Mexican American) art. In 2022, the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture, aka The Cheech, opened its doors, making history as the first museum devoted exclusively to ​“all things Chicano art”.

Hailing from Los Angeles, curator Elizabeth Ferrer remembers the museum’s opening as an important event, both for the community and for herself. Recognising she was among like minds, she set forth to create Chicano Camera Culture: A Photographic History, 1966 – 2026, an epic celebration of Chicano life as seen through 150 works across multiple generations now on view at the Cheech.

Featuring nearly 50 photographers including trailblazers Louis Carlos Bernal, George Rodriguez, and María Varela; innovators Reynaldo Rivera, Kathy Vargas, and Ken Gonzales-Day; and contemporary artists Guadalupe Rosales, Star Montana, and Thalía Gochez, Chicano Camera Culture forms a map of photographic history that has been largely disregarded by industry and institutions alike. 

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“The photographic record, whether from the viewpoint of photojournalists, documentarians, hobbyists, or artists, was created by the white gaze, and for a long time that fact was by and large taken for granted,” Ferrer says. ​“With the rise of the Civil Rights movement, the Chicano gaze comes into play. This means that for the first time, Chicanos are representing other Chicanos, typically, people who would otherwise be anonymous or unrecognised.” 

Like Ferrer’s 2021 book, Latinx Photography in the United States: A Visual History, Chicano Camera Culture is a landmark work, exploring Chicano photography as a cultural ethos born from knowledge of self. Rather than ascribe descriptors to identity, Ferrer maps its expression across generations, exploring the age-old questions of the human condition with a tender heart and a knowing eye. 

“All of the work in the show illuminates in one way or another, what it means to be Chicano,” she says. ​“Many of the themes addressed by the photographers – pride in identity, our struggle for agency and autonomy, the values we place in family and home, and the ways we create and claim space – are unsurprising. But what is impressive is the innovative ways in which they have been elaborated.” 

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Organised around themes of self/​portraiture, domestic life, protests, border stories, and alternate realities, Chicano Camera Culture is a magnificent archive of collective resistance against an occupying force that has vilified and criminalised indigenous and mestizo communities, while telling the stories of the people and their cultures.

“From the beginning, the Chicano gaze has been about expressing pride in Chicano identity, preserving our history, uplifting cultural and spiritual values, validating persons out of the mainstream, and giving visibility to members of our own community,” Ferrer says. ​“As for what it means to tell Chicano stories by Chicano artists in a Chicano museum in the United States in 2026, I’d say it’s high time!” 

Chicano Camera Culture: A Photographic History, 1966 – 2026 is on view through September 6, 2026, at the Cheech Marin Art Center in Riverside, California. The catalogue is distributed by the Washington University Press for the Riverside Art Museum.

Miss Rosen is a freelance arts and photography writer, follow her on X.

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