On Thursday, students and community members enjoyed live music, free food and art activities on San José State’s Tower Lawn at the Rooted Music & Art Festival.
Presented annually by the SJSU César Chávez Community Action Center (CCCAC) the festival commemorates the legacy of alumni Tommie Smith and John Carlos as part of the Legacy Month celebrations.
During the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, Smith and Carlos raised their fists in protest against racial injustice in the United States while standing on the podium during the medal ceremony, according to an Oct. 15, 2023 article by BBC.
The action center promotes civic engagement and social justice activism among students, according to its webpage.
Serena Munoz, SJSU alumna and former employee of CCCAC, led the tissue paper flower booth.
“I think it just gets them away from the computer,” Munoz said. “I think studying too, like when you’re on the computer, you’re doing your homework, you kind of just need a little space to get creative and I think it’s a good way for people to get out, listen to music, especially with finals coming up.”
She said she is regularly invited by the CCCAC to hold various arts and crafts workshops on campus.
This year’s festival featured performances from DJ Jazz, Rumbo Tumba and Queens of the Castro.
Queens of the Castro is a non-profit organization that holds drag shows in schools and universities across California to fundraise for scholarships for LGBTQ youth, according to its webpage.
Students redeemed free bao buns, popcorn and boba from local food vendors Bun Me Up, Peter’s Kettle Corn and Breaktime Tea with their festival ticket stubs.
Stations for woodblock art, tissue paper flower crafts and face painting offered students opportunities to get creative.
Nico Gonzalez, woodblock artist and ‘craftivist’ led the woodblock art booth where students printed his hand-carved designs onto t-shirts, posters and fabrics.
Naye Rosas, Gonzalez’s assistant and mentee said craftivism is the portmanteau of the words ‘craft’ and ‘activism’ and is the practice of making crafts to advocate for political change.
“The students’ response, a lot of times, is they know somebody that is undocumented or it’s something that directly affects them,” Gonzalez said. “I mean, we’re in the Bay Area, we’re in San José, so a lot of students come from immigrant families.”
Gonzalez said his designs bearing political messages like “ICE Out Of Schools” or “No Human Being Is Illegal” have been popular among students.
Immigrants made up 36.5% of the population in Santa Clara County, of those, 47.6% are not U.S. citizens, according to a 2020 infographic by the National Immigration Forum.
Gonzalez, who has been invited to participate in the Rooted Music & Art Festival since 2022, said the importance of sharing political art with students has only grown.
“I live in Oakland, so Alameda is right next to us – that’s where they (federal agents) are being deployed to. So this is something that’s been going on for a long time,” Gonzalez said.
Multiple instances of ICE activity have been reported in San José, with one targeted arrest happening as recently as Monday, according to the Rapid Response Network in Santa Clara County.
Rosas, a San Francisco-based multimedia artist, led the woodblock art booth alongside Gonzalez.
“(Linocut) is an accessible medium and has historically been used to create political arts, especially within the Latino community,” Rosas said. “… So I feel like if you’re doing linocut and you’re not making political art, then you should take some time to learn about the history of it, because it’s directly tied to them.”
Printmaking processes have been used for disseminating information and advocating for social justice since their inception, according to the Janet Turner Print Museum at California State University Chico.
Katie Pleitez, an intern at Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network (SIREN), said the legacy of Tommie Smith’s and John Carlos’s act of protest in 1968 lived on in the work of local organizations today.
“I think it really ties into (Legacy Month) because we’re all about advocacy, we’re all about helping the immigrant community,” Pleitez said. “… It’s about standing up for what you believe in, not being silenced, not having fear of being silenced.”
SIREN is a non-profit organization that provides legal services, community education and civic engagement training to low-income immigrants and refugees in California, according to its webpage.
Last Thursday, dozens of federal agents – including personnel from Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement – arrived on Coast Guard Island in Alameda to conduct immigration operations at President Trump’s order, according to an Oct. 23 article by the Spartan Daily.
Gonzalez, who has been living in the United States undocumented since he was five years old, said sharing his art is a way of empowering students and educating them about issues in their communities.
“I’m just showing people, ‘Look, I am who they’re talking about’ and so I’m putting a face to it, too, like, ‘Look, I’m still here and I’m still fighting,’” Gonzalez said. “Yes, there’s a lot of fear being spread but at the end of the day, I feel like there’s more of us. So the art is what keeps me pumped.”
The festival closed with performances by drag performers Grace Towers, Sicaria, Bría Gaia, Alpha Andromeda, Mudd the Two Spirit and Barracuda.
The Queens of the Castro members encouraged audience members to participate in the show, giving out swag to winners of the runway walk competition.
Kyle Ingalla, second-year pre-nursing student, said he was glad to have been able to come out to the festival.
“I just think this whole event is really cool,” Ingalla said. “And I’ve been so busy with classes that I never really get to come out to them, so I’m really happy to be here right now.”
