Oakland-featured artist and activist Nicolás González-Medina was one of the almost 1,000 demonstrators who collected argue for immigrants, LGBTQ+and women’s rights in the Mission District of San Francisco for a day of resistance on January 18, prior to presidential inauguration. And he was prepared with his woodcut printing supplies.
“Ninety percent of being a political artist show up for things,” he said Hyperallergic.
For the Mars, the inauguration of Donald Trump protests – who has sworn again to deport Millions of immigrants without papers -González-Medina chose “Somos La Resistencia (we are the resistance)”, which he has printed on picketboards and worn around 150 shirts during the event.
The print has half a portrait of a long -haired figure that carries earrings that say “resistance” and holding a hand in resistance. The artist gives his artwork for free during protests, but usually sells it online.
“This artwork has AZTEC designs because we live in a time when people forget their history,” said González-Medina. “The resistance means that we will still be here – you can’t delete us.”
Trump’s threats became a reality in the days after his inauguration, when he signed orders End the birth war agency for the children of parents without papers and greenlight immigration -raids In hospitals, schools and churches. On Sunday 26 January, Immigration and Customs enforcement (ICE) reported Nearly 1,000 arrests, according to the highest single-day statistics since the office started to share numbers on X, according to CNN.
González-Medina was also asked to paint the leading flag of the protest with the expression “Somos La Resistencia” written in large, daring letters. A week after the protest of San Francisco, another of the designs of González-Medina, “Juntxs and La Lucha (together in the fight),” Displaying a masked person who carries braids, adorned the cover of the free bilingual newspaper of San Francisco Mission District El Tecolote In an issue that included a spread about what immigrants without papers can do if they are confronted with immigration authorities.
Long before González-Medina’s work became a bay emblem of the struggle for immigration rights, he was a name in activist circles. “The reason why I started making art was because I was tired of always arguing with people,” said González-Medina Hyperallergic. “I concentrate on myself, do the work and at the end of the day, when I do something good, it will show itself.”
In 2010, in the same year that he lost his mother to cancer, González-Medina “came out” as undocumented during National Coming Out of the Shadows Day In Chicago, an event organized by the immigrant Youth Justice League. “I’m no longer afraid. My name is Nico and I have not been documented, “he said in one speech That day reveals status.
González-Medina was born in Guanajuato, Mexico. When he was only five years old, he moved to Chicago, where his mother worked in a factory. Hij bleef in de stad tot 2013, toen hij naar de Bay Area verhuisde.
He was one of the five activists without papers who wanted Run from San Francisco to Washington, DCin 2012 to argue for the Development, help and education for alien Minders (dream) actwho would establish a road on a legal stay for the children of immigrants without papers and did not endure us several times. The artist said he also helped to organize one hunger strike At an Obama campaign office in Denver, Colorado, in June 2012. Shortly thereafter, the Obama government created the deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
Although he fought to set a way to a permanent status for children of people without papers, González-Medina said that he is not eligible for Daca because he did not complete in high school or completed a Ged, such as required Through the promotion.
González-Medina did not call herself an artist until he moved to Oakland, although he had previously painted banners for protests. On one of his first jobs in the Bay Area, González-Medina saw the former Black Panther party minister Emory Douglas, who created political art Use Woodsangen Print, at work.
“He cut so deep into it, it was very sculptural,” said González-Medina. Towards the following year he made his own large -scale woodcut prints.
Now mobilizing his own art for change as reports of ice scattered throughout the country, González-Medina said that he was used to very anti-immigration moments like this and has been a child since he was a child.
“The feeling is of uncertainty, a lot of fear is spread,” González-Medina told Hyperallergic. “But we can look back and remember:” Okay, we’ve already experienced this. ” I also know that it will really push people there in the coming four years to make art and participate. “
