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\nCeramic figurines on display as part of “Painting La Comuniversidad” exhibit celebrating the Royal Chicano Air Force. (Sacramento State\/Andrea Price)<\/p>\n
April 03, 2026<\/p>\n
In 1970, a collective of artists and activists took flight at Sacramento State.<\/p>\n
Two new professors harnessed the energy of students and community artists to fight for farmworkers\u2019 rights and serve marginalized neighborhoods \u2014 using art.<\/p>\n
Inspired by Mexican culture and Indigenous iconography, the bold, colorful imagery on posters, flyers, and murals helped shape Chicano identity and paved the way for public art support in Sacramento.<\/p>\n
\nCeramic figurines on display as part of “Painting La Comuniversidad” exhibit celebrating the Royal Chicano Air Force. (Sacramento State\/Andrea Price)<\/p>\n
Now more than 50 years later, galleries, museums, and other arts organizations throughout the region are celebrating the Royal Chicano Air Force (RCAF) with a six-month series of events, including \u201cPainting La Comuniversidad: Three Murals of the Royal Chicano Air Force\u201d <\/a>at the University Library Gallery.<\/p>\n \u201cThe RCAF\u2019s legacy, that spirit of art and activism, continues,\u201d said Terezita Romo, co-founder of La Raza Galeria Posada and one of the collective\u2019s early members. \u201cFuture generations need to know what that means and how it can be incorporated into these times.\u201d<\/p>\n Professors Jos\u00e9 Montoya and Esteban Villa, both practicing artists, landed at Sac State in 1969 at the height of student-led movements pushing for educational equality, ethnic representation, labor rights, and an end to the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n San Francisco and Los Angeles were epicenters, but Sac State \u2014 where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a moving speech to thousands in 1967 \u2014 served as a vital hub in the capital city.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere was so much energy because of the larger Civil Rights Movement and this consciousness about education not being equal for us, and of course all the young people getting killed in Vietnam,\u201d said Romo. \u201cAll these different communities were looking at ways to make a difference and use that energy to do something positive.\u201d<\/p>\n In their classes, Montoya and Villa exposed students to modern and ancient Mexican art often for the first time, while encouraging them to look to their own cultures and communities for inspiration.<\/p>\n Outside of the classroom, they formed a collective and organized campus activities involving culture and art.<\/p>\n \u201cPainting La Comuniversidad: Three Murals of the Royal Chicano Air Force\u201d runs through May 1 at the University Library Gallery<\/a>. For information about \u201cInFormation: A Celebration of the Royal Chicano Air Force\u201d events throughout the region visit La Raza Galeria Posada<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Calling themselves the Rebel Chicano Art Front, the group of\u00a0artists and activists later moved off-campus and established the Centro de Artistas Chicanos to foster art, history, education, and culture in the Mexican American community, showing the world what it meant to be Chicano.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir work still resonates with the world that we\u2019re dealing with today,\u201d said Sac State alumna Janina Sofia L\u00f3pez, who worked on Sac State\u2019s exhibit while studying for her PhD at the University of Pittsburgh.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe RCAF and the Chicano Movement were really about building a community and making that community aware that we have each other. There is a network of people sharing space, sharing a meal, sharing artwork, and working collaboratively, and I think these are things that continue to be priorities for people today.\u201d<\/p>\n Their work spilled into Sacramento, where public murals in Southside Park and at the\u00a0Washington Neighborhood Center stirred community and cultural pride.<\/p>\n \u201cMurals were very important because they were public, and anyone could see them,\u201d Romo said. \u201cIt was very much about claiming space and saying, \u2018We see you, and we\u2019re reflecting you. We\u2019re reflecting the community.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Many collective members grew up working in the fields under the hot California sun with their parents, so they were quick to align with the United Farm Workers Union. They designed posters and flyers for fundraisers, boycotts, and demonstrations, producing thousands of copies overnight through the screenprinting process.<\/p>\n They signed their pieces with the initials, RCAF.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople kept asking them if they were part of the Royal Canadian Air Force, and they just went with it,\u201d L\u00f3pez said. \u201cThey were like, \u2018No. We\u2019re the Royal Chicano Air Force.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cThey embraced the imagery, and it became part of their whole persona.\u201d<\/p>\n RCAF members would show up to events in flight suits with aviator goggles and headsets, even arriving at a protest in Woodland in a military Jeep.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cTheir humor shows up throughout their work,\u201d L\u00f3pez said. \u201cSpending time with the artists and their families, we\u2019re laughing all the time. Laughter is a way to bring people together, but it\u2019s also a way to talk about really difficult things and to be able to see a path forward at times when it\u2019s often hard to see.\u201d<\/p>\n RCAF artists used the Western art techniques they learned in the classroom and drew on their own cultural influences, imagery they saw in their homes, and even comics and pop art to create their pieces.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were reinterpreting it but also being very cognizant that they were reflecting and responding to their community as well,\u201d Romo said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t about building a career as an artist. Jos\u00e9 Montoya talked about how ludicrous that was with everything that was going on.<\/p>\n \u201cBut the visual arts became a great tool for artists to serve and benefit the community and the larger movement. Art was a way of telling their own story visually.\u201d<\/p>\n At one point, there were as many as 15 RCAF murals in Sacramento.<\/p>\n RCAF\u2019s legacy continues today.<\/p>\n In 2022, a new assistant art professor, Luis Garc\u00eda, resurrected Barrio Art, a program that Montoya and Villa had developed at Sac State in the early \u201870s.<\/p>\n Garc\u00eda and his students have helped Washington Elementary School teachers and kids create their own mural as well as organize community events. His goal is to show his students, who will likely become art educators, how to engage in the communities they work in.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t want to focus on teaching about the principles of design,\u201d Garc\u00eda said. \u201cMy goal is to show students how to use art to explore their own identities and to develop a consciousness of what is going on in their own communities. Use art to challenge or counter the circumstances that exist in their communities.\u201d<\/p>\n Today, pieces by RCAF artists can be found in museums and universities throughout the United States and Europe, including\u00a0 Enrique Ortiz\u2019s \u201cTlaloc\u201d in Sacramento Hall.<\/p>\n Some outdoor murals such as \u201cSouthside Park\u201d and \u201cMetamorphosis\u201d on the Downtown Commons West Garage, survived the elements.<\/p>\n Villa\u2019s \u201cEmergence of the Chicano Social Struggle in a Bi-cultural Society,\u201d which he painted with his students inside the Washington Neighborhood Center is one of the oldest existing Chicano murals in the country.<\/p>\n In 2018, RCAF artists Juanishi Orosoc, Stan Padilla, and Esteban Villa completed a 35-foot mural called \u201cFlight\u201d at the Golden 1 Center with the help of their children and grandchildren.<\/p>\n The piece was funded by the city\u2019s 1979 2% for Art ordinance, which requires setting aside two percent of construction costs for eligible projects for public art.<\/p>\n Artist Juan Carrillo, who taught social science at Cosumnes River College and became director of the California Arts Council, called his years with the RCAF \u201ctransformative.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBeing among artists dedicated to community transformed me from a man who didn\u2019t know what he was going to do with the rest of his life to someone whose life and art had purpose,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Romo, a curator and an activist with RCAF who earned her master\u2019s degree in Art History from Sac State, spent three years researching and tracking down posters to include in her exhibition \u201cRebels With La Causa: Royal Chicano Art and Activism, 1970-1990\u201d<\/a> at the Crocker Art Museum.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/royal-chicano-air-force-gallery-ap-2-11-26-22.jpg\")
\n“Painting La Comuniversidad” curator Janina Sofia\u00a0L\u00f3pez takes RCAF artists and their families on a tour of the exhibit. (Sacramento State\/Andrea Price)<\/p>\n![\"Woman](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/royal-chicano-air-force-gallery-ap-2.11.26-18web.jpg\")
\nA student examines a large-scale reproduction of the “Southside Park” mural by RCAF. (Sacramento State\/Andrea Price)<\/p>\n