• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

CSRC ORAL HISTORIES SERIES NO. 13, DECEMBER 2013 JUDITHE HERNÁNDEZ INTERVIEWED BY KAREN MARY DAVALOS ON SEPTEMBER 26, 2009, AND JULY 14, 2010 Judithe Hernández is a Los Angeles-based artist first recognized as a muralist and now widely known for her works in pastel. A member of Los Four for ten years, she participated in ten major exhibitions with the art collective. She has exhibited internationally, and her work has been acquired by private collectors and major institutions, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, the El Paso Museum of Art, and the Bank of America collection in New York. She is the recipient of a COLA fellowship from the city of Los Angeles, and she was selected by the Los Angeles Transit Authority to create the art for the Santa Monica Metro station, scheduled to open in 2016. Karen Mary Davalos is chair and professor of Chicana/o studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Her research interests encompass representational practices, including art exhibition and collection; vernacular performance; spirituality; feminist scholarship and epistemologies; and oral history. Among her publications are Yolanda M. López (UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press, 2008); “The Mexican Museum of San Francisco: A Brief History with an Interpretive Analysis,” in The Mexican Museum of San Francisco Papers, 1971–2006 (UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press, 2010); and Exhibiting Mestizaje: Mexican (American) Museums in the Diaspora (University of New Mexico Press, 2001). This interview was conducted as part of the L.A. Xicano project. Preferred citation: Judithe Hernández, interview with Karen Davalos, on September 26, 2009, and July 14, 2010, Los Angeles, California. CSRC Oral Histories Series, no. 13. Los Angeles: UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press, 2013. CSRC Oral Histories Series © 2013 Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Interview © 2010 Judithe Hernández. Do not reproduce without permission. THE CSRC ORAL HISTORIES SERIES The CSRC Oral Histories Series publishes the life narratives of prominent Chicano and Latino figures. The life narratives have been recorded and transcribed, and the interviewer and interviewee have reviewed and corrected the transcriptions prior to publication. These oral histories are often undertaken as part of a larger research project and in tandem with archival collections and library holdings. CSRC ORAL HISTORY SERIES PROJECTS L.A. Xicano documents the history of Chicana/o art in Los Angeles with a focus on artists, collectives, and art organizations. The project resulted in new museum and library exhibitions, public programs, archival collections, and scholarly publications. These efforts were part of the Getty Foundation initiative Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A., 1945–1980. The project received support from Getty Foundation, Annenberg Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and California Community Foundation. Related support includes funding from Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, AltaMed Health Services Corporation, Entravision Communications Corporation, Walt Disney Company, and individual donors. A Ver: Revisioning Art History stems from the conviction that individual artists and their coherent bodies of work are the foundation for a meaningful and diverse art history. This book series explores the cultural, aesthetic, and historical contributions of Chicano, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, and other U.S. Latino artists. The A Ver project is made possible through the generous support of Getty Foundation, Ford Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Joan Mitchell Foundation, JPMorgan Chase Foundation, and The Rockefeller Foundation. The LGBT and Mujeres Initiative seeks to increase archival and oral history holdings that document the Chicano/Latino presence in LGBT and women’s histories, the role of women and LGBT people in Chicano/ Latino histories, and the importance of gender, sexuality, and ethnicity in “mainstream” scholarly research and archival institutions. The project receives generous support from the Ford Foundation and individual donors. ARTISTS INTERVIEWED FOR THE L.A. XICANO PROJECT Judy Baca Charles “Chaz” Bojórquez David Botello Barbara Carrasco Leonard Castellanos Roberto “Tito” Delgado Richard Duardo Margaret Garcia Johnny Gonzalez Judithe Hernández Leo Limón Gilbert “Magu” Luján Monica Palacios John Valadez Linda Vallejo INTERVIEW WITH JUDITHE HERNÁNDEZ September 26, 2009 .......1 July 14, 2010 ...........23 SEPTEMBER 26, 2009 Karen Davalos: This is Karen Davalos with Judithe Hernández for the [CSRC Oral Histories Series], and this is our first session of oral history. And today is September 26, 2009. Judithe, I wanted to start with just some really simple questions about your family: where you were born, where your family is from. Judithe Hernández: Born in Los Angeles, March 16, 1948. We didn’t originally live in East LA. My parents, that is. Neither of them is from California or Los Angeles. My mother’s from El Paso, Texas. My dad’s from Benson, Arizona. During World War II my dad was stationed in San Rafael, California, and when the war was over they decided to move to Los Angeles, but in those days they moved to the Exposition Park area. They were on Figueroa at Forty-Seventh Street. It was before it was an African American neighborhood. And it was near Exposition Park near USC, and they lived there until I was about four-ish. KD: Did they call that—we call it South LA now, South Central. JH: Yeah, I think. If you have to call it something I think it was called South Central because that’s what it was. And in those days it was still mostly white folk and some Latinos who were coming in after the war. But by the time I was four they were talked into moving. There was an influx of African Americans, you know. KD: Right. JH: They preferred to be with other Latinos, so they moved to East LA where . I think my mother’s godmother said, “Oh, I know there’s a place for rent,” blah, blah, blah, so we moved. So I grew up actu- ally—spent my life from about four almost to the time I left Los Angeles. It was within the first quarter of the block of Woodman Street, at the corner of Main, at the far edge of Boyle Heights. It was sort of at the border between Boyle Heights and Lincoln Heights, which was a block from the railroad tracks. We always lived within walking distance of the tracks because my dad worked for the railroad—Southern Pacific Railroad. So you would always hear the trains go by and the television would always get drowned out by the damn train coming by. [laughter] It was for reasons of work that we always lived so close to the tracks. Following the move to that part of town I went to Griffin Elementary, which I think is still there, and then I went to Abraham Lincoln High School up on Broadway. KD: What we call Lincoln High School. JH: What we call Lincoln High School, absolutely. KD: Okay. And did you have brothers and sisters? JH: Yes, I have one brother. He’s thirteen months older than I am. He’s an attorney, he’s been a deputy district attorney for nearly twenty-five or thirty years now. Senior deputy district attorney. [laughter] Jaime, J-A-I- M-E. Nice guy. Very, very left-brained. KD: And while you were growing up did your mother ever work outside the home? JH: She did. When we were small children, not so much. When we got a little older, she did. You know, my dad is a guy who—he was a car man. Car man—C-A-R M-A-N—for the Southern Pacific, and those were the guys who kind of were jacks-of-all-trades. When the trains came in from trips—passenger trains— they would go through, and whatever the car needed to be, you know—serviced and put back into duty again—they would . Whether it was electrical or upholstery or carpentry or whatever it was, they would go through and fix it and get it ready for another trip. 1 CSRC ORAL HISTORIES SERIES And he never made a whole bunch of money, so at one point my mother did work outside the home. When we were probably, oh, you know, [in] sixth or seventh grade, she began to work outside the home at one of the local dime stores—they called them dime stores in those days [laughter]—owned by a very nice man [whose] last name is Jaffey [?] And because my brother is Jaime and I am Judithe, they used to think we were his kids. [laughter] Nice Jewish kids, right, Judithe and Jaime. So there we had—there are some fond memories of visiting her while she was working. But for the most part— KD: At the dime store? JH: At the dime store, yeah, which was a terrible underutilization of her talents and her intellect. She was an amazing woman. She was college educated. She didn’t finish college. She went to Texas A&M. She had an amazing father. My grandfather was a guy who was a Mexican immigrant but he was self-taught six or seven languages, [and] was a chef for [the] Fred Harvey [Company], which was kind of the premier dining place in railroad stations, which in those days . Where they have, like, the equivalent of the airport [res- taurant]. KD: Right. JH: And it wasn’t just a train station or the bus station. He was an amazing guy. He believed in women’s suf- frage. I think he even campaigned for women’s suffrage—thought women should do whatever the hell they wanted, whenever their gifts allowed them to do. He had no restrictions on his daughters.

Load more

  58

Copy Link