Posters

"The poster historically has always been a vehicle for disseminating information to people. I think even the relationship has changed somewhat now because of the internet and the way people can disseminate information. But they are still being used for political rallies and so forth. They’re still used for that because people can basically distribute them and they can carry them during the rally. Then afterwards people can still post them up in their homes or in their windows. The life of the poster can go on for longer than the poster itself." 

- Juan Fuentes, Chicano artist, Telephone Interview, 2021.

"Well you know everybody works a little differently. Because of the nature of screenprinting you basically have to create a stencil and depending on how many colors you’re going to print or how many layers it’s gonna have. Let's say for instance you have something that gonna have 4 or 5 colors, then you need 4 or 5 stencils and you gotta create those stencils. And there’s different ways to do that. Now you can do it digitally. Then you can print your stencil or print your film. With screen printing we work with film positives. Basically it’s a clear piece of film with the image on it. So it would be black and white basically and the agitator and the clear mylar would be clear and then you would have the image." 

- Juan Fuentes, Chicano artist, Telephone Interview, 2021.

"You can also do it old school which is basically you take a sheet of a material called ruby knit, it's kinda like a red material, and you can put it on your drawing and you can carve what you want on your rubit knit. Then you peel away anything you don’t want. So there's different ways to do it." 

- Juan Fuentes, Chicano artist, Telephone Interview, 2021.

Ester Hernandez interview on poster artwork, 2015.

"There are some iconic images that have made a lasting impression, even multigenerational lasting impression. There’s an art piece by Yolanda Lopez called, “Who’s the illegal alien pilgrim?” and that was created in the 1980s during the Carter presidential administration. I thought it was created for Proposition 187 because it made perfect sense in relation to that anti-immigrant proposition. That's an example of how that artwork really spoke to a specific issue and a specific time but it's able to transcend that and be used over and over. It was so brilliant because it spoke beyond that moment in the Carter administration and that immigration reform of the Carter presidency. She was so critical in thinking how xenophobia operates, her artwork was able to still make sense decades later."

~ Katynka Martinez, Chicano Studies Professor at San Francisco State University, Videoconference interview, 2021.

Posters were an extremely important medium in the Movement because they were a mix of artistic vision and political activism. For Mario Torero, Yolanda Lopez, and other artists, posters were used to communicate a social message. 

Poster artists utilized the silkscreen to print eye-catching posters and display them in all areas. Posters could not only express political messages through graphic designs, but also promote events and bring attention to a cause.