Barbara Carrasco

Barbara Carrasco (born 1955) is a Chicana artist, activist, painter and muralist.

She lives and works in Los Angeles.

Her work critiques dominant cultural stereotypes involving socioeconomics, race, gender and sexuality, and she is considered to be a radical feminist.

Her art has been exhibited nationally and internationally.

Carrasco received her BFA in art from UCLA in 1978.

She was the first person in her family to graduate from college.

At UCLA, she was the first woman editor of the campus Chicano newspaper, the La Gente.

Carrasco was one of the first artists to join Cesar Chavez's United Farm Workers (UFW) movement.

She heard him speak at UCLA when she was nineteen and she says that she "volunteered right after the speech."

She did volunteer artwork for Chavez for fifteen years because she believed both in his movement and in Chavez himself.

Occasionally, Chavez was able to reimburse her for art supplies, but most of the work Carrasco did was unpaid.

Carrasco helped create "monumental banners" for the United Farm Workers movement and protests.

Right after graduating from UCLA, Carrasco helped work on art for the Zoot Suit play, which later opened on Broadway.

She also became involved with the Centro de Arte Público after UCLA.

Her work was exhibited in the 1990-1993 traveling exhibition Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation.

Carrasco was born in El Paso, Texas to Mexican-American parents.

She was the oldest girl and second oldest child of four siblings.

When she was around a year old, her family moved to Los Angeles.

The family lived in government Veterans' housing in Culver City, since her father was a Korean War Navy veteran.

She recalls that they were poor and lived off food stamps.

Carrasco's childhood growing up in the predominantly Mexican-American and African-American community of Mar Vista Gardens was sometimes painful.

She was teased for having lighter skin than her peers and stood out for her Green Eyes; being called "white girl," "Green Eyes" and "güera" (Spanish slang for "white girl" or "light hair").

Her experiences with being simultaneously perceived as not truly Mexican-American and being told to "take advantage of being light skinned" makes up of part of her artistic subject matter later on in life.

Carrasco was encouraged by her father to broaden her horizons, go to college and perform her artwork.

Her father, who worked as a bus driver for Santa Monica Bus Lines, told her "anybody could be a bus driver but not everybody could be an artist."

Carrasco's father died of a heart attack when she was twelve and it was difficult for her because they were close.

Carrasco's mother, who also volunteered as a Girl Scout leader, was also artistically inclined.

Her mother admired Japanese art and decorated the house with it.

Carrasco felt that growing up with Japanese images influenced her sense of line.

She also felt that her mother was a personal role model because she was a strong woman.

However, her mother was also very protective of her girls, and she expected Carrasco to act as a role model of traditional femininity for her sisters.

Carrasco attended Catholic school from first to eighth grade.

Carrasco felt that racism was prevalent there and white students were "treated better."

She often drew on the tables at school instead of paying attention to her lessons.

Because she was so often in her own "little world of drawing," she repeated first grade.

Some of the nuns, however, noticed and encouraged her talent, including Sister Mary Ann, who continued to stay in contact with Carrasco after she left school.

In seventh grade, when she made her confirmation as a Catholic, Carrasco chose Saint Joan of Arc as her confirmation name because she was inspired by her leadership.

During the summers, she and her sisters were part of a program that helped young people from the projects attend classes at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Carrasco credits the program with also expanding her horizons and encouraging her to apply for college.

Carrasco attended Venice High School.