Jesús Manuel Mena Garza
- Jesús Garza
- San José
- UNITED STATES
- 56
Photographer, artist, and audiovisual producer Jesús Garza's artistic vision was shaped by his boyhood in San Jose, California, and later nurtured at Roosevelt Junior High, San Jose High, San Jose State University, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the Academy of Art College. From the beginning, Garza's images have their source in his migrant farm worker heritage and his immersion in the dynamic political and artistic culture of El Movimiento, the political movement that emerged during the mid-60s seeking social justice for Chicano/as.
Jesús was born in 1952 to Eusebio and Guadalupe Mena Garza in San Jose, California. Guadalupe grew up in Crystal City, Texas, although she was born in nearby Carrizo Springs. Eusebio hailed from Coahuila in Northern Mexico and came to Texas as a child with his parents. The Garza family settled in Crystal City where Eusebio later met and married Guadalupe. Jesús' parents worked their entire lives as farm laborers migrating through the central and western regions of the United States during the picking season and returning each winter to Crystal City. In the mid-1940s, Manuel, Eusebio's eldest brother, led the extended Garza family to San José in search of increased opportunities. Jesus' parents and siblings worked in the fields of Santa Clara Valley while living in various migrant labor camps.
Growing up in San José during the 1960s, Jesús saw his city change from an agricultural oasis south of San Francisco to the capital of Silicon Valley. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Garza family's eight children picked fruit and vegetables at orchards and farms that later became prized locations for the computer industry's chip manufacturing plants. During this period, Jesus' parents bought a house in a racially diverse, working-class neighborhood. Guadalupe began working at local canneries, although she continued in the fields at various times of the year. Jesús worked in the fields during summers, on weekends throughout his school years, and during college. Garza notes, "My parents were very modest. I don't remember having any long conversations with either of them. My father usually sat in the corner reading the Spanish language newspaper. My mother could not read or write, but she definitely had a keen mind. She knitted, crocheted, made quilts and clothing like most mothers of the period. She enjoyed gardening and especially tending to her roses. Today I grow roses in her memory."
Throughout Jesús' childhood, the Garza family returned to Crystal City several times to see members of the familia that had remained behind. During one trip when he was ten years old, with his mother, brother David, and several members of his brother-in law's family all stuffed in the car, he saw a sign posted on a rural Texas saloon stating, "No Mexicans or Dogs Allowed." Although the adults ignored the sign and entered the saloon without incident, the experience made a deep impression on Jesús. Later in 1969, Jesús happened to be in Crystal City during the historic high school walkout when young Chicano/as angrily protested racist policies that denied them opportunities afforded Anglo students. In this small South Texas town, he witnessed the impact of poverty, segregation, and activism, an encounter that shaped his future political and community involvement.
Jesús' family could not afford a camera or record player. At age eleven, he bought himself his first camera at la pulga, the San José Flea Market. This simple twin lens box camera captured his initial portraits of close friends and neighborhood buildings, subjects he would record throughout his career. A few years later at Roosevelt Junior High, Garza witnessed the magic of the darkroom and its photographic processes for the first time. Under the supportive tutelage of instructors Prospero Anaya and Ron Root at San José High, Garza began to craft his photographic style and technique. Drawn to the position of outside observer, the documentation of events and people formed the primary initial focus of Jesús' photographic work. He served as photographer for both the school newspaper and yearbook and discovered photojournalism as his calling. Mentors Anaya and Root closely guided him in coursework every semester during high school and exposed him to the artistic environment of Bay Area galleries and museums during field trips with the Photo Club. As a result, when he graduated in 1970, Garza had a thorough understanding of photographic processes, techniques and equipment. Immediately out of high school, Garza worked for the summer as a cinematographer at the Chicano Film Institute of San José. Here he also established himself as a photographer, documenting the struggles of Chicano/as in the Santa Clara Valley. When he entered San José State University in the fall of 1970, he studied Photojournalism under Dr. Joe Swan and participated in the progressive causes of the time including antiwar demonstrations and protests that sought increased access for Chicano/as to education and media. At SJSU Garza served as president of three campus organizations, as a member of the UFW Support Committee, and as a member of the Community Alert Patrol, or CAP, where he took photographs of police in the field to monitor and document police brutality. Through his participation in these events and organizations, Jesús met Cesar Chavez, Corky Gonzales, José Angel Gutiérrez and other Chicano/a leaders.