Your guide to the Mission District’s art history. SEE IN THE LARGER PDF. If you have tales you would like to add, please let us know at missionlocal@gmail.com. Map by Molly Roy, Text by Laura Wenus and Lydia Chávez
Lydia Chávez
Founder/Executive Editor. I’ve been a Mission resident since 1998 and a professor emeritus at Berkeley’s J-school since 2019 when I retired. I got my start in newspapers at the Albuquerque Tribune in the city where I was born and raised. Like many local news outlets, The Tribune no longer exists. I left daily newspapers after working at The New York Times for the business, foreign and city desks. Lucky for all of us, it is still there.
As an old friend once pointed out, local has long been in my bones. My Master’s Project at Columbia, later published in New York Magazine, was on New York City’s experiment in community boards.
Right now I'm trying to figure out how you make that long-held interest in local news sustainable. The answer continues to elude me.
More by Lydia Chávez
for Lydia Chavez re interview of me and my comments at Latino Historical Platica June 7.
1) Carlos Loarca artist was the art director at Casa Hispana de Bellas Artes before I replaced his vacancy around 1968. Not Amilcar Lobos who I believe was the director or president of the organization.
2) I neglected to mention that Jesus Chuy Campusano, one of the founders of Galeria de La Raza and who attended San Francisco Art Institute and as a student won a scholarship to study murals/fresco painting in Mexico for about a year under important artist was my brother-in-law. I still maintain if it hadn’t been for Graciela Carillo and me (Iwas tipped off about a special board of directors meeting with young members of the Black community to negotiate scholarships for them) and our aggressive demand that we also get scholarships at that meeting, Latinos Chicanos would have received nothing. Rene Yanez and Ralph Maradiaga through Galeria selected young students and artists for the scholarships.
Nice talking to you. Thank you. best wishes Francisco
Does this tell tell us usual BS how Rene Yanez was the first person the exhibit Frida Kahlo work even though she was established before he was even here?