How Cheech Marin helped the ‘Godfather of West Coast graffiti’ break into the art world

Los Angeles graffiti artist Chaz Bojórquez is now widely known as “the Godfather of West Coast graffiti”, and has had his work featured in museums like LACMA, MOCA and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, but was met with rejection when he was first trying to get his work shown in museums.

He’d studied at the influential Chouinard Art Institute in L.A., and with calligraphy master Yun Chung Chiang, but “ I was trying to get into galleries, and they refused to show my work,” Bojórquez told LAist. The explanation, as recently as the late 1990s, Bojórquez said, was that graffiti “belong[ed] in the streets."

There was also a question of whether Bojórquez’s work — a blend of calligraphy and street writing adopted by L.A. gang culture — should even be considered Chicano.

Bojórquez says that when he approached Sister Karen Boccalero of Self Help Graphics, the famed East L.A. art and cultural center for Latino and Chicano artists that had been around since the early 1970s, about showing his work, Boccalero told him, “ I can't show this because it's anti-Chicano. Chicanism is family, border issues, migration, farm workers, all that. Why [would] I want to show this ‘bad boy’ stuff and undermine what we're doing?”

A change in fortune

'Chino Latino' by Chaz Bojórquez, 2000. Acrylic on canvas, 60 x 72 in.

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Courtesy of The Chicano Collection

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For actor and comedian Cheech Marin — a prominent collector and advocate for Chicano art — the definition of Chicano is less narrow: “ It keeps evolving all the time.”

Marin began collecting Chicano art in the 1980s, and around the year 2000, he called up Bojórquez, ultimately buying a piece of his called “Chino Latino,” featuring a black and white dragon holding letters reading “Los locos de Cali” in its claws.

Explaining the meaning beyond the translation, Bojórquez says, “ We are the crazy ones from California. Not crazy in our head, but crazy about life and crazy about art.”

A reunion for ‘We the People’

Marin included “Chino Latino” in his first art exhibition — “Chicano Visions: American Painters on the Verge,” which traveled to major art museums in 15 U.S. cities between 2001 and 2007 — and also in the new “We the People: Chicano Art in the U.S.A.” exhibition at The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture, which opened at the Riverside Art Museum in 2022.

'A Miracle of the Masses' by Benjamin Muñoz, 2023. Acrylic on carved panel with relief printmaking collage. Gift of Jorge A. Lopez, MD and Samantha Lopez for The Cheech Center Collection of the Riverside Art Museum.

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Courtesy of the artist

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The overarching message of “We the People” — a new exhibition of over 120 works from 61 artists — and of The Cheech, Marin says, is that “Chicano art is American art.”

“ We demand to be spoken of in the same paragraph as every other American, established art.” Having an official inclusion in the Riverside Art Museum — “that stamp of approval” — goes a long way toward achieving that full recognition.

A new relevance

'Hello America,' 2025 by Vincent Valdez. Intaglio gravure with embossed titling, hand-colored in pencil.

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Courtesy of the artist and Cheech Marin

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That the “We the People” opening comes on the heels of the first anniversary of the start of federal immigration raids in Los Angeles, when the “Americanness” of Latino immigrants and even U.S. citizens is still being questioned, is something that Marin and curator Benito Huerta are acutely aware of.

“We the People: Chicano Art in the U.S.A. is a declarative statement,” Huerta writes in his curator’s statement, “that ‘we,’ Chicanos, are part of ‘the people’ of these United States of America.”

“We’ve been here [...] since Mexico, through shifting borders and histories, and now within these United States. Yet, we are still challenged as to where our home resides. Our home is here.”

Those current challenges are reflected in many of the works in the exhibition, including Lalo Alcaraz’s “Summer of ICE (Abandoned Paleta Cart)” from 2026, as well as Joe Peña’s “Rosie’s Tamales” from 2019.

At the same time, the influence of Chicano culture and  L.A-style graffiti continues to spread around the world.

“This art that we do has given me the opportunity to travel all over the world,” Bojórquez says. “I’ve been to over 45 countries, and I'm sure Cheech has been to more. And they embrace us.”

How to see it

“We the People” is open now at The Cheech at the Riverside Art Museum through May 23, 2027. The museum is open every day but Tuesday. Admission is free on Sundays during the summer and during the Riverside Arts Walk (first Thursday of each month).