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Flying Under The Radar With The Royal Chicano Air Force: The Ongoing Politics Of Space And Ethnic Identity, Ella Maria Diaz

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This dissertation explores the Royal Chicano Air Force (RCAF), a Chicano/a arts collective that produced numerous murals in Sacramento, CA, for over forty years. Grounded in Mexican and US aesthetic traditions, their murals reflect cultural hybridity and re-imagine US history through a Chicano/a perspective. Many of their works were and are located in Sacramento's Chicano/a barrios, while others occupy interethnic, public space in the vicinity of the State Capitol. By encoding hidden Chicano/a iconographies within each mural, the RCAF offers what scholar Alicia Gaspar de Alba calls "alter-Native" narratives of American history because they posit "Other" views of local history, …