The Royal Chicano Air Force (RCAF) is a Sacramento, California-based art collective, founded in 1970 by Ricardo Favela, José Montoya and Esteban Villa.
He and newly hired art professor Esteban Villa, who had founded the Mexican American Liberation Art Front, a Chicano movement group founded in Oakland with Montoya's brother Malaquias, Manuel Hernandez and Rene Yañez, became active and soon created a circle of artists and activists interested in political and cultural work.
At the same time, with the example of the great Mexican muralists, the artists undertook mural painting to bring cultural images and history to a larger audience.
The RCAF established the Centro de Artistas Chicanos moving from temporary quarters in homes, garages and La Raza Bookstore to Holy Angels School at 7th and T Streets.
Through the university, Jose Montoya, Esteban Villa and, later, Ricardo Favela, taught a generation of young artists the techniques of silk screen, muralism, drawing, and painting.
At Moses Lake, Washington Community College, Lorraine García-Nakata taught ceramics, painting and drawing to young students of color (Black, Brown, Persian, other).
Jose Montoya went on to establish the Barrio Art Program, representing an effort to reduce barriers between the CSU campus and the Alkalai Flats community.
Lorraine García-Nakata also became Lead Artist at San Quentin Prison teaching visual art to (maximum security, condemned row, and lower security) inmates and she also directed twelve other cross-disciplinary artists who taught additional workshops in literature, music, visual arts, and theatre.
Through the efforts of RCAF members and Sacramento State students, Phillip "Pike" Santos and Louie "the Foot" Gonzalez, La Raza Bookstore was established in 1972.
Beginning with Phillip Santos, the organization was administered by Tere Romo, Josie S. Talamantez, Armando Cid, Victoria Plata, Luis Chabolla, Marisa Gutierrez, Francisca Godinez, and Marie Acosta.
Freddie Rodriguez established the Royal Chicano Air Force Band, an ensemble performing a variety of genres from cumbias to blues.
Freddie's RCAF Band created, wrote, and performed a Chicano rock opera "Xicindio" in 1980 at the Sacramento Community Theatre for a national conference of bilingual educators that was later aired on PBS.
With the arrival of maestro Rudy Carrillo, the quality of performance grew and original music was composed leading to the establishment of El Trio Casindio—a four or more sized ensemble.
These Favela collections will provide academics, researchers and community members a valuable visual art resource for the future.
The RCAF began operating out of the Washington Neighborhood Center and frequently held events at Sacramento's Southside Park.
To fund their activities and to support the farmworkers, they held dances, performances, and other fundraisers, for which they created promotional posters that visually incorporated the themes of the Chicano Movement.
The RCAF, under the directorship of Gilbert Gamino, ran an automotive repair cooperative called Aeronaves de Aztlán.
In May, 2011, José Montoya was honored at a Sacramento concert at César Chávez Plaza as one of the "Fathers" of the Chicano Art Movement.
The collective continues to operate presenting group and individual art exhibits while Villa and Montoya have added recordings to their repertoire.
[8] In the late summer, 2011, the RCAF members began to restore their murals located in Chicano Park, Barrio Logan, San Diego.
Jose Montoya, Esteban Villa, Juanishi Orosco and Celia Hernandez were contracted as lead artists and were responsible for the work.
Juanishi Orosco received a commission to paint "Capaces", a mural completely covering the four exterior walls at a Chicano service center in Woodburn, Oregon in the summer of 2013.
The scholarship is funded by donations from the current RCAF membership and the surrounding community, art shows, fundraisers, raffles and the like.
On the night of November 14, 2013, at the basement of Venti's bar (Salem Oregon), a meeting took place where Juanishi V. Orosco, using his power as general and founding member of the RCAF, recruited a number of people to form the North Division of the Royal Chicano Air Force.
The new members of the Northern Division of the RCAF were: Dalila Ortiz, Lázaro Ybarra, San Juana Acosta- González, Roberto Orán, Zoé Gibert, and Matías Trejo De Dios.
The names of Emidio Lopez, Benjamín Bocanegra, Ingrid Fuentes, Erubiel Valladares Carranza II and Vicky Falcón Vázquez were added later to this list per Juanishi Orosco.