César A. Martínez
As a child of migrants from Nuevo Leon, Mexico, César A. Martínez was the first American-born member of his family. He was raised in Laredo, Texas, and graduated from Texas A&I University in 1968 with a B.S. Degree in All-Level Art Education. In the spring of 1971, after being drafted into the army, he reunited with college friends who were deeply involved in the Chicano political movement. Martinez was attracted to the movement not solely for its civil rights, but due to its self-determination regarding his cultural identity. He prides himself as being one of the few artists who were into abstraction and sympathetic to political activism. He remarked, “Chicano Art manifests itself as a specific art phenomenon with an ethnic aspect and a corresponding cultural and political attitude.”
