For some time, I have been in search of different strategies to touch elcorazón y la mente de nuestra raza. In fact, almost two decades ago I beganmy “…re-encounter/reencuentro con mis raíces…” as Alfredo Acosta Figueroa reinforces in his book, Ancient Footprints of the Colorado River. The goal of this project is to target nuestros morritos and morritas in an attempt to provide them with a sense of cultural identity, to reinforce the consciousness/conciencia of our 500-year struggle and to advocate for political, economic and social awareness. My objective was to construct una ranfla, but not just any ranfla; a lowrider that represents el grito de Miguel Hidalgo, Cuauhtémoc, Dolores Huerta and the millions of mujeres y hombres that have passed on por la causa and cultural survival. In that, this ranfla will be used as an educational vehicle to inspire our youth and future leaders to learn/search for their raíces/roots. It will take a journey throughout
Aztlán/southwestern U.S., and perhaps other parts of the country. However, the journey will begin in nuestros barrios. En pocas palabras, it will be used as a form of outreach and focused on healing cargas/wounds of shame, lies,
traumas and false promises. 

The questions posed to the artists that participated in this project were as
follows: 

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“What is your definition of ‘La Causa’?” 

“How would you represent ‘La Causa’ in an 8 x 11 sized image?” 

Taking it back from the Olmeca period to the most recent immigrant struggles. I asked each individual artist to share one piece of arte that represented La Causa to him/her through their point of view. With their permiso/approval, the image was utilized as a part of a collage to complete El Campesino Project-63’ Impala. “Una Mano no se LavaSola, Venceremos.” Rodolfo Acuña. 

Sinceramente, 

Martín M. Ramírez