Examining Working Class Chicano Identities in San Antonio and Chicago as Portrayed in The Banner Project by Juan Miguel Ramos, David Botello’s Arte por Vida/Art for Life and The Children of Quetzalcoatl by Ricardo Santos Hernandez

This dissertation examines how contemporary Chicano working class identities are imagined and portrayed within three public art examples in Chicago, Illinois and San Antonio, Texas: The Banner Project, completed in 2002, by San Antonio Artist Juan Miguel Ramos, contemporary tattoo art of San Antonio artist David Botello, owner and proprietor of Arte Por Vida/Art for Life tattoo studio, and The Children of Quetzalcoatl mural by Chicago artist Ricardo Hernandez. Using the artists? lives and environs as grounded theories, I fully document their images and analyze how these artists and their artworks relate to and interact with the particular surrounding space and location as well as my personal and professional relationships to the original art sites. I examine the multiple ways ethnicity plays a role in each artist?s life and art and discover that ethnicity is but one meaningful factor defining their art. Formal education, lived experiences within familial locations and working class values and ethics also contribute in shaping the course of these artists? identities and artwork over time. Ethnicity and social class are factors that these artists negotiate daily. These formally educated artists with working class roots have helped change communities and the visual arts and are but a glimpse of the complex lives and locations of what it means to be Chicano in a rapidly changing American cultural landscape.