A Visual Culture History of Chicane/Latine Solidarity with Palestine

Abstract

For several social justice circles around the world, Palestine is a relational matter and an organizing principle. This article argues that the Chicane/Latine visual culture of solidarity with the Palestinian cause has been present in the Latine community’s struggles for justice in the United States since at least the 1970s. Though Chicanes/Latines sparingly reference Palestine in contrast to countries in the Americas and occasionally Southeast Asia, the modest archive of visual culture tells an important story of transnational solidarity rooted in struggles for liberation. In this article, the dispersed archive of visual culture includes photographs in community press, activist prints, and mock wall installations on U.S. college campuses.

The article studies archived Chicana/o periodicals of the 1970s and 1980s, such as La Gente de Aztlán, La Raza, and El Editor, and examines photographs that render Palestine and Palestinians visible. It then examines contemporary activist prints by the collective Dignidad Rebelde, showing how these images build on the earlier forms of affective solidarity. The collective’s critique of U.S. and Israeli settler-colonial violence incorporates Latine cultural symbols. This article concludes with an examination of mock wall installations at the University of Washington and Northwestern University, illuminating how they visualize both Palestinian and U.S.-Mexico border wall struggles.