La Raza

La Raza, launched in 1967 in the basement of an Eastside LA church, was conceived as a tool for community-based organizing during the early days of the Chicano movement. The all-volunteer staff of the newspaper—and the magazine that followed—informed readers and exhorted them to action through images and articles that showcased protests and demonstrations and documented pervasive social inequity and police abuse. La Raza’s photographers played a critical role as artists, journalists, and activists, creating an unparalleled record of the determination, resilience, and achievements of the Chicano community during a period of profound social change.

This catalog presents photographs from the La Raza exhibition at the Autry Museum of the American West and the more than 25,000 images in the La Raza Photograph Collection at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center. The essays offer not only scholarly assessments of the role of Chicanx photographers in social movements and art history but also personal perspectives from La Raza photographers.

Colin Gunckel is associate professor of screen arts and cultures, American culture, and Latina/o studies at the University of Michigan. Luis C. Garza is a photographer and independent curator. Amy Scott is chief curator and Marilyn B. and Calvin B. Gross Curator of Visual Arts at the Autry Museum of the American West.