Scherezade García, untitled from her 500 Yolas series, 1992. Courtesy of the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center. Photo by Ricardo Romo.
At the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center in Austin, Texas, friends of Gilberto Cardenas and Dolores Carillo Garcia gathered on July 11, 2026, for a special viewing of the exhibit, Mitote, selections from the Cardenas-Garcia extensive and iconic Chicano art collection.
Dr. Cardenas and his wife Dolores Carillo Garcia have created an extraordinary collection featuring Latino artists from the Southwest, Midwest, and beyond. They have donated thousands of artworks to many museums, including the UT Austin Blanton Museum of Art.
West wall of the exhibit. Courtesy of the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center. Photo by Ricardo Romo.
The Mexican American Cultural Center curators titled the exhibit ‘Mitote,’ which comes from the Nahuatl word ‘mitotiqui,’ meaning to “dance, gather, celebrate together, and make joyful noise.” Cardenas and his wife, Dolores Carillo Garcia, have lent iconic paintings, sculptures, photographs, works on paper, and mixed-media works by well-known Chicano artists for the exhibit. Each piece carries its own story while contributing to a larger conversation about cultural heritage and the relationships that shape our communities. The exhibit honors the impact this couple has had in making Chicano art an important contribution to American art.
Director of UT Austin Blanton Museum of Art Simone Wicha speaking next to the south wall exhibit space of Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center. Photo by Ricardo Romo.
Sylvia Orozco, the Director of Austin’s Mexic-Arte cultural arts center and museum, was one of three speakers at the special art event featuring the Cardenas-Garcia art collection. Orozco, who also had an art piece in the show, met Cardenas at UT Austin in the mid-1970s, and they shared a profound passion for Chicano art. At the time of their meeting, Cardenas taught in the UT Austin Sociology Department, and Orozco was an undergraduate at UT Austin. They belonged to similar Chicano organizations linked with civil rights and social justice.
The founding of Mexic-Arte came about in 1984 through the efforts of Sylvia Orozco, artist and printer Sam Coronado, and artist Pio Pulido. Orozco recruited Dr. Cardenas to join her new nonprofit board at Mexic-Arte. One of Mexic-Arte’s early exhibits included “José Guadalupe Posada: Master Printer.”
The west wall exhibit space of the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center. Photo by Ricardo Romo.
Recognition for Mexic-Arte has come in many forms over the past four decades. The art organization recently received $20 million of City of Austin bond funds to expand and renovate the museum space on the corner of Congress and 5th Street. Orozco has been honored by the Austin Arts Hall of Fame and was appointed by President Barack Obama to the National Museum and Library Services Board in 2017.
Also attending and sharing his work in the Mitote exhibit was California artist Malaquías Montoya. Montoya is recognized as a foundational figure in the development of the Chicano Art Movement. Beginning in the mid-1960s, Montoya created bold silkscreen posters, murals, and prints. He has consistently used art as a vehicle for social justice, political consciousness, and collective empowerment.
Austin artist Connie Arismendi enjoying the West wall exhibit space of Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center. Photo by Ricardo Romo.
Malaquias Montoya was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1938, and raised in the San Joaquin Valley of California. He is one of seven children brought up by farm working parents who could not read or write. His early life was shaped by economic necessity, hardship, and resilience.
According to the Sacramento News & Review, Montoya “enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps when recruiters said he’d be able to send home $100 monthly. That was more than his mother and Malaquias “could make picking cotton or working cannery jobs.” After his military service, Montoya attended the University of California, Berkeley.
As a UC Berkeley undergraduate, Montoya emerged as a key contributor to the Chicano poster movement. His work, including the influential 1971 Yo Soy Chicano poster created in collaboration with filmmaker Jesús Treviño, gained national recognition.
Malaquias Montoya, “Presente”. Courtesy of Gilbert Cardenas and Dolores Garcia. Photo by Ricardo Romo.
Montoya’s posters became a powerful tool for education and mobilization. Art posters were his most influential medium because they could reach broad audiences affordably and directly, making them especially effective during the Civil Rights and Chicano movement eras.
As Montoya explained in a Sacramento News & Review interview, “My interest has always been to get my art out to the people who don’t go to museums,” a philosophy reflected in his lifelong commitment to accessibility and public engagement. Montoya’s work remains grounded in activism. His art work educated, informed, and mobilized communities, reinforcing the essential role of art in movements for change.
Malaquias Montoya’s long tenure at the University of California, Davis further amplified his impact. His department commended Montoya’s goals: “A man of great political and artistic principles, he believes that art should be directed to the broadest possible audiences, including those who do not frequent commercial galleries. Montoya has elected to make the world his art gallery.”
Exhibitions such as ‘Mitote’ have underscored both Montoya’s enduring legacy and his profound influence on subsequent generations of activist artists. Today, he continues to live in a small Northern California farming community with his wife Lezlie Salkowitz, and he remains active in the arts, mentoring emerging artists and sustaining his lifelong commitment to social justice through visual expression.
Jaime “Germs” Zacarias, untitled. Courtesy of the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center. Photo by Ricardo Romo.
Latina artist Scherezade García, who spends summers in New York City, was unable to make the exhibit reunion in Austin, but her bold and vibrant artwork stood out as one of the most prominent pieces in the show. Her contribution to Latino art extends beyond her accomplished paintings and installations; she is also an influential teacher at UT Austin and an interpreter of Caribbean history and culture.
Details of the West wall exhibit space of the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center. Photo by Ricardo Romo.
Born in the Dominican Republic, García draws from a historical context shaped by early European colonization. Santo Domingo, founded in 1496 by Bartholomew Columbus, stands as the oldest permanent European settlement in the Americas. This legacy informs her sustained interest in colonialism and its cultural consequences.
García earned an MFA in Sculpture from the City College of New York (CUNY) in 2011. A co-founder of the Dominican York Proyecto GRÁFICA, she taught at Parsons from 2010 to 2021 and joined the University of Texas at Austin faculty in 2021.
Her artistic practice spans painting, printmaking, and installation, all informed by research into Spanish colonial history and Afro-Atlantic legacies. García’s work reflects her mixed African and European heritage, engaging with the history of Hispaniola, where the introduction of sugar plantations led to the exploitation of Taíno labor and, subsequently, the forced migration of enslaved Africans. Histories of displacement, survival, and resistance are central to her work.
Details of the exhibit space of the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center. Photo by Ricardo Romo.
My own academic training in U.S. and Latin American history did not fully prepare me for the depth of insight I gained through conversations with García about colonialism and the Afro-Latino diaspora. Harriett and I visited with her at the New York City gallery that showed her work and at her Brooklyn studio. Her reflections on migration, mestizaje, baroque aesthetics, and the reimagining of religious and social concepts of paradise reveal a deeply engaged intellectual and artistic practice rooted in the human experience of her homeland.
García’s themes of Atlantic migration and diaspora have gained increasing recognition in Texas and California. In 2024, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art acquired her painting “Harvest of the Sea.” In her “Liquid Highway” series, García presents the Atlantic Ocean as both a site of trauma and a pathway to freedom.
Scherezade García remains committed to fostering cultural awareness among younger generations in the study of the Caribbean islands. Her work is held in prominent collections, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum and El Museo del Barrio, affirming her significant place in contemporary Latino and Caribbean art.
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Copyright 2026 by Ricardo Romo.