When activism is not optional

Chicana feminist and San Francisco Mission stalwart Yolanda M. Lopez passed in 2021; a free exhibition of her art, Women's Work is Never Done, is currently on display within the library at the University of San Francisco.

Lopez's voluminous body of work touched all the struggles of her time:

Moving from San Diego to San Francisco in the late 1960s, she became active in the cause of Los Siete de la Raza, young Latinos charged with killing a police officer who were eventually acquitted with broad community support.

 

Latino Californians were forced during the 1980s and 1990s, particularly by 1994's racist initiative Prop. 187,  to organize themselves to win political power commensurate with their numbers. 

 

Although Lopez eventually won increasing respect for her more sophisticated feminist art, one explanatory panel reminds exhibition visitors that, "at the height of her career she still made ends meet by working at the Macy's gift-wrapping counter." Lopez was a worker.

I found an installation she called "The Nanny" most poignant:

The show will be open daily from noon to six until November 12.