José Montoya (May 28, 1932 – September 25, 2013) was a poet and an artist from

Sacramento Sacramento ( or ; ; ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the seat of Sacramento County. Located at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers in Northern California's Sacramento Valley, Sacramento's 2020 p ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. He was one of the most influential

Chicano Chicano (masculine form) or Chicana (feminine form) is an ethnic identity for Mexican Americans that emerged from the Chicano Movement. In the 1960s, ''Chicano'' was widely reclaimed among Hispanics in the building of a movement toward politic ...

bilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...

poets. He has published many well-known poems in anthologies and magazines, and served as Sacramento's poet laureate.

Biography

He was born in

Albuquerque, New Mexico Albuquerque ( ; ), also known as ABQ, Burque, the Duke City, and in the past 'the Q', is the List of municipalities in New Mexico, most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico, and the county seat of Bernalillo County, New Mexico, Bernal ...

and raised, along with his brother, Malaquias Montoya, in the

San Joaquin Valley The San Joaquin Valley ( ; Spanish language in California, Spanish: ''Valle de San Joaquín'') is the southern half of California's Central Valley (California), Central Valley. Famed as a major breadbasket, the San Joaquin Valley is an importa ...

in California. He and his family were migrant farm workers and Montoya started helping in the fields at age nine. The experience made Montoya decide that "farm work would not be his destiny." His mother was an artist herself, stenciling images for churches and homes and creating her own pigments and his experiences assisting her helped him think about becoming an artist. From 1951 to 1955, he served in the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

. After the Korean War, he used his

G.I. Bill The G.I. Bill, formally the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I. (military), G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in ...

to go to college. He entered

San Diego City College San Diego City College (City College or City) is a public community college in San Diego, California. It is part of San Diego Community College District and the California Community Colleges system. The college is accredited by the Accrediting ...

as an art student, Montoya later transferred to the California College of Arts & Crafts in

Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1962. He began his career by teaching at Wheatland Union High School. Later, he earned his MA in 1971 from

California State University, Sacramento California State University, Sacramento (CSUS, Sacramento State, or informally Sac State) is a public university in Sacramento, California, United States. Founded in 1947 as Sacramento State College, it is part of the California State Universit ...

. He taught Chicana/o studies in the Department of Art at California State University, Sacramento. Here, he worked for over twenty five years and started a unique program called the "Barrio Art Program." This program worked with student teachers who went into neighborhoods that were traditionally "under-served" in order to teach art to young people. he died of lymphoma in 2013. In the early 1970s, Montoya joined his students and members of the Chicano community to found the Rebel Chicano Art Front, later renamed the Royal Chicano Air Force, which supported the activities of Cesar Chavez and helped to advance the cause of the United Farm Worker's movement. The RCAF under Montoya and his artist comrades produced countless silk screen posters and organized numerous cultural, educational, and political activities in the Sacramento area and well beyond. They also did community work, such as the "Breakfast for Niños" program that served food to children in poor neighborhoods. His poetic career was said to have begun with the publication of his poem, "La Jefita" (1969) in ''El Grito: A Journal of Contemporary Mexican-American Thought''. His poetry was noted for using

code switching In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation or situation. These alternations are generally intended to i ...

barrio ''Barrio'' () is a Spanish language, Spanish word that means "Quarter (urban subdivision), quarter" or "neighborhood". In the modern Spanish language, it is generally defined as each area of a city delimited by functional (e.g. residential, comm ...

slang and for its themes about struggling against injustice. His son Richard Montoya is a member of the performance troupe Culture Clash.

"El Louie"

   Hoy enterraron al Louie.
   And San Pedro o san pinche
   Are in for it. And those
   Times of the forties
   And the early fifties
   Lost un vato de atolle. :— ''El Louie'', 1969 "El Louie" is probably Montoya's most famous and most often anthologized poem. With compassion and anger, it tells the story of Louie, a pachuco from San José and California's Central Valley who is a popular local figure. After he comes back from the war in Korea his life disintegrates as he continues coming into conflict with the white-dominated world of California; he is a hero and a loser, hocking his combat medals for booze and drugs; he dies alone in squalid conditions. Louie is not elevated to gangster sainthood, but he is "recognized as a normative model" rather than portrayed as deviant, dangerous or insignificant.

Works

*Montoya, José. ''El Sol y Los De Abajo and other R.C.A.F. poems por José Montoya''. San Francisco: Ediciones Pocho-che, 1972. *Montoya, José. ''In Formation: 20 Years of Joda''. Chusma House Publications, 1992. *Trio Casindio and the Royal Chicano Air Force. ''20 Years of Songs by José Montoya''. *Montoya, José. ''Los Compas: Chale Gallego y'l Xorty''. Copilot Press, 2010.

References

Sources

*Elliott, Emory. ''The Columbia Literary History of the United States''. NY: Columbia UP, 1988. *Hernandez, Guillermo E. ''Chicano Satire''. 2 March 2004. https://web.archive.org/web/20040302235506/http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/csrc/gmo/span145/articles/satirepgs52-84.html. Austin: U of TX P, 1991. *Montoya, José. ''In Formation: 20 Years of Joda''. Aztlán: Chusma House Publications, 1992.

External links

Guide to the Montoya José Papers
from the

California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives (CEMA) is an archival institution that houses collections of primary source documents from the history of minority ethnic groups in California. The documents, which include manuscripts, slide photograp ...