My artwork focuses on peace loving people who have no choice but to resist war and occupation in order to survive. Berkeley, the city that sells itself as the “home of free speech", censored my artwork depicting people struggling for justice. The city of Berkeley believes my artwork is “violent".

Among my pieces that were censored is “Brown Beret”, a portrait of a young Chicana at one of the largest Chicana/o anti-Vietnam war actions. The National Chicano Moratorium protested the fact that Chicano soldiers were dying in the Vietnam War in higher proportion than their numbers in the general population. In "Brown Beret" I show a young woman, a member of East L.A. chapter of the Brown Berets, a barrio-defense committee, wearing a bandolier.

The City of Berkeley’s policy (or at least that of its curator) for the Addision Street windows prohibits any “explicit sex or violence or guns - that is deadly weapons". The irony is that an image memorializing young people of color who organized massive peaceful protests against an unjust war are completely prohibited –in the name of non-violence by a city that spends $196,000 on a sculpture that celebrates free speech. ” The faces and dimensions of resistance reflect the reality of brutal oppression communities of color have endured. Erasing the history of resistance is violence itself, silencing screams instead of lifting up voices.

Melanie Cervantes
Artist and Printmaker
of the Taller Tupac Amaru