Faculty Feature: Late CFA San Marcos Member Remembered as Fighter for Faculty Rights, Preeminent Chicano Artist

Since David Avalos passed away in July, his colleagues at CSU San Marcos have called him an eternal professor emeritus because he still has a presence in the art department and on campus for so many people.  

His colleagues remember him as a fighter for faculty rights and a preeminent Chicano artist who gained national attention for his work related to immigrant labor and the San Diego border region.

Avalos began teaching at the university in 1991 and was the chapter faculty rights chair for many years. He served as a representative on the CFA San Marcos Faculty Rights Committee for decades up until about last year, said Talitha Matlin, CFA San Marcos president and CSU San Marcos librarian.

Matlin said his approach to faculty rights was rooted in care for his colleagues and their well-being. She admired how Avalos wasn’t afraid to be direct with members and give them real advice.

“David inspires me and I hope he inspires others to continue to be the leaders we need right now,”

Michelle ramos pellicia

“Of course, he would counsel them on what their rights were and help them with the administration,” Matlin said. “But also, if they were doing things that were detrimental to their case, he would tell them to stop or he would say, ‘You’re the one who’s wrong here. Stop doing that.’ And I think he really helped a lot of people in that way change their behavior and change for the better so that they could be more successful or be better colleagues.”

Avalos was simultaneously practical and pragmatic while also compassionate and sincere, she added. He excelled at referring to the contract and his work on faculty rights didn’t end when the cases ended. Matlin said Avalos checked in on people even after his formal role and responsibilities were done.

He stayed active in the art department following his retirement party in 2017, said CFA member and CSU San Marcos professor Lucy HG Solomon. He still attended department meetings and came to events, especially student art exhibitions.

HG Solomon shared an office with Avalos and considered him a mentor who pushed her to make her best work. He was fluent in making connections across ideas, people, and research, HG Solomon said.

“Many of us in the art department, I believe, are his artistic progeny,” HG Solomon said. “We carry his lessons on how to work in the world as engaged artists and how to work with one another on campus as attentive colleagues who aren’t afraid to challenge one another’s ideas.”

HG Solomon said Avalos’s work in the community was thoughtful, impactful, and, at times, confrontational. HG Solomon added that Avalos shifted from activist-based to conceptual across his career. His work included mixed media sculpture as well as public and political art.

Avalos was deeply involved in Centro Cultural de la Raza, a Chicano community cultural center in San Diego, and co-founded the Border Art Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo, an artist group that worked to discover and define border consciousness. He also was a voice keeping alive the history of Chicano Park in San Diego and a curator and participant in celebrations for Día de Los Muertos, HG Solomon said.

How he merged cultural and political identity with his art is celebrated in exhibitions and books, such as Traitor, Survivor, Icon: The Legacy of La Malinche, HG Solomon said.His individual and collaborative works are in the permanent collections of places including the Smithsonian America Art Museum, the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Chicano Studies Research Center at UCLA, according to CSU San Marcos.

Avalos received visual artists fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the California Arts Council. His work, writings, and interviews are archived at UC Santa Cruz’s Califas Archival Collection, UC Santa Barbara’s California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives, and the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art, according to according to CSU San Marcos.

He spoke at length about his identity in a 1988 oral history interview saved in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.

“Some artists who used to be called Chicano artists have stated publicly, ‘Don’t call me a Chicano artist; I just want to be known as an artist,’” Avalos said in the interview. “I think my attitude in response to that is, ‘Don’t call me a Chicano artist; I just want to be known as a Chicano.’”

Among his works that gained national attention was the “San Diego Donkey Cart,” which juxtaposed a traditional Mexican cart often used for tourist photo opportunities with a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent frisking an undocumented immigrant.

He got a permit to display the artwork on the grounds of a U.S. courthouse in San Diego in January 1986, but a federal district court judge ordered it the piece to be removed. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued on his behalf for freedom of expression, but the case was ultimately dismissed.

“Art Rebate/Arte Reembolso,” a 1993 public art project Avalos worked on with Elizabeth Sisco and Louis Hock, similarly sparked debate in national media as well as Congress. The artists handed out $10 bills to undocumented workers, highlighting how they contributed to the economy and paid taxes, but didn’t receive tax rebates.

The San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art and Centro Cultural de La Raza supported the work, and the National Endowment for the Arts withdrew its backing from the project, The New York Times reported.

“David was bringing about the discussion of art in politics because he was also engaging in discussing politics within his art and trying to shift public perception,” HG Solomon said. 

Michelle Ramos Pellicia, CFA Vice President and CSU San Marcos professor, said she was aware of the fact that Avalos was a big deal as an artist, but she knew him as a union activist and friend. The stances he took as an artist and union member overlapped, however.

After U.S. Border Customs and Border Protection came to campus for a career fair, Ramos Pellicia and other faculty put together a letter demanding that the university keep the agency and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) off campus. As they collected signatures from active CFA members, Ramos Pellicia said Avalos always supported her and offered reassuring words.

Avalos was part of the group of faculty and students that delivered the letter to Karen Haynes, who was the university president at the time. Ramos Pellicia said Avalos kept asking Haynes, “What are you going to do?” The Haynes administration didn’t commit to keeping ICE off campus, but it agreed to place them in areas that weren’t as visible during job fairs and give the campus community notification in advance.

Although they were frustrated by the response, Ramos Pellicia said Avalos was a fighter for the rights of the people who was unapologetic and unequivocal. He stood up front, asking the question and naming the problem. 

“David inspires me and I hope he inspires others to continue to be the leaders we need right now,” Ramos Pellicia said.