Royal Chicano Air Force archives, 1970-1988
Collection context
Summary
- Title:
- Royal Chicano Air Force archives
- Dates:
- 1970-1988
- Creators:
- Royal Chicano Air Force
- Abstract:
- Collection of slides and silkscreen prints, along with administrative records, news clippings, correspondence, exhibition descriptions and flyers, photographs, creative writings, and other publications of the Sacramento-based artists collective, Royal Chicano Air Force (RCAF).
- Extent:
- 21 Linear Feet (16 slide albums, 34 document boxes, 2 oversized boxes, video and audio files, and 550 prints)
- Language:
- English Spanish; Castilian
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of Item], Royal Chicano Air Force archives, CEMA 8. Department of Special Research Collections, UC Santa Barbara Library, University of California, Santa Barbara.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
The collection contains administrative, programmatic, and creative materials of the Royal Chicano Air Force. Materials include administrative/personnel records, grant applications, news clippings, correspondence, exhibition descriptions and flyers, photographs, creative writings, color copies, 2-D artwork and other related publications. In addition, there are approximately 550 art prints and 4,200 slides.
- Biographical / historical:
-
The Royal Chicano Air Force (RCAF) is an artistic collective based in Sacramento. Initially named the Rebel Chicano Art Front, the RCAF was founded in 1969 to express the goals of the Chicano civil rights and labor organizing movement of the United Farm Workers. Its mission was to make available to the Chicano community a bilingual/bicultural arts center where artists could come together, exchange ideas, provide mutual support, and make available to the public artistic, cultural, and educational programs and events.
The founding members of the RCAF include José Montoya, Esteban Villa, Juanishi V. Orosco, Ricardo Favela, and Rudy Cuellar. Montoya and Villa knew of each other through their involvement in the Mexican American Liberation Art Front and the California College of Arts and Crafts. During the Chicano Movement students pressured colleges and universities to diversify their faculties. As a result, Montoya and Villa were hired as professors of art at California State University, Sacramento. Their academic positions gave them the creative freedom to initiate programmatic exchanges between the university and the barrio community. Through this effort they initiated many programs including the Barrio Art Program, which required university students to go out into the community including senior centers to teach art courses.
While the "RCAF" originally stood for the Rebel Chicano Art Front, people confused the letters with the acronym for the Royal Canadian Air Force. Montoya and his fellow officers capitalized on the misunderstanding, and in good humor adopted the name Royal Chicano Air Force. This new identity found its way into their wardrobe, as well as their highly successful silkscreen poster program, which began to disseminate the World War I aviator and barnstorming bi-winged planes as icons. The RCAF gained a reputation for outrageous humor, fine art posters, murals, and community activism.
In 1972, the RCAF created the not-for-profit Centro De Artistas Chicanos. This community based organization became the spring-board for all types of Sacramento community programs, such as La Nueva Raza Bookstore (with its GalerÃa Posada), Aeronaves de Aztlán (Automotive Repair Garage), RCAF Danzantes (Cultural Dance venue), Barrio Art Program, and the RCAF Graphics and Design Center. By 1977, the Centro de Artistas Chicanos and Breakfast for Niños Program (a community non-profit program that fed children before school) joined forces to create the Cultural Affairs Project, which further funded their many community services.
The RCAF is best known for its mural paintings, poster art production, and individual artistic contributions. The artists of the Centro have produced murals and exhibitions from San Diego to Seattle. RCAF is significant as a collective that has maintained a twenty-five year history of engaging communities to express their Chicano culture, history and struggle for equal rights.
The RCAF Archives complement the work of CEMA's Proyecto CARIDAD (Chicano Art Resources Information Development and Dissemination), the archival cataloging of Chicano visual arts slide images. Together, these projects document the visual art production and social history of important Chicano art collectives in California.
- Acquisition information:
- Donated by Royal Chicano Air Force, 1988.
- Processing information:
-
Materials have been arranged with emphasis upon the Center's activities, and folders generally follow an alphabetical order according to the titles given to them by the. When necessary, titles were assigned to folders that lost their labels or to items that were loose or unfoldered. Folders with the same subject are usually arranged alphabetically or chronologically.
- Arrangement:
-
The collection has been arranged by topic and format into eight series:
- Series 1: Administrative records
- Series 2: Programs
- Series 3: Correspondence files
- Series 4: Subject files
- Series 5: Flyers, news clippings, publications
- Series 6: Color copies, photographs, slides
- Series 7: Creative works
- Series 8: Graphic art collections
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Indexed terms
About this collection guide
- Date Encoded:
- This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2026-07-07 16:55:34 -0700 .
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
The collection is open for research.
- Terms of access:
-
Property rights to the collection and physical objects belong to the Regents of the University of California acting through the Department of Special Research Collections at the UCSB Library. All applicable literary rights, including copyright to the collection and physical objects, are protected under Chapter 17 of the U.S. Copyright Code and may be retained by the creator and the copyright owner, heir(s), or assigns.
All requests to reproduce, quote from, or otherwise reuse collection materials must be submitted in writing to the Department of Special Research Collections at UCSB at special@library.ucsb.edu. Consent is given on behalf of the Regents of the University of California acting through the Department of Special Research Collections at UCSB as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission from the copyright owner. Such permission must be obtained from the copyright owner, heir(s), or assigns. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or their assignees for permission to publish where the UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of Item], Royal Chicano Air Force archives, CEMA 8. Department of Special Research Collections, UC Santa Barbara Library, University of California, Santa Barbara.
- Location of this collection:
-
UC Santa Barbara LibrarySanta Barbara, CA 93106-9010, US
- Contact:
- (805) 893-3062