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Ruben Trejo is a wildly creative and productive sculptor and mixed-media artist living in Spokane, Washington. His Codex for the Twenty-first Century (1977) was purchased by the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, and the National Museum of Hispanic Art in Albuquerque, NM recently acquired his Joaquin/Walking (2000). Trejo's work has been anthologized and/or featured in numerous books and catalogues of contemporary art, both nationally and internationally. Trejo recently retired from Eastern Washington University (EWU) in Cheney, WA, where he was a professor of Art and Humanities for over 30 years.
Barbara Loste: : Ruben, can we start with your family background?
Ruben Trejo: : Sure. I was born 66 years ago in St. Paul, Minnesota, but my parents came north from Michoacan (Mexico) around 1910. They had planned to go back, but they got used to it here. They worked in packing plants with migrant workers from Texas and on the railroad. They had 11 kids, but four of them died. I was born in a boxcar on the CB&Q railroad where my dad worked for nearly 40 years.
BL: : Do you consider yourself a Chicano artist?
RT: : In some ways I do. But I think "Chicano artist" is just a title, and I see myself as a citizen of the world. The Chicano movement really helped me, and we have helped each other, I don't deny that. My generation forged the way for others to become who they are today. In my early work, I did a series of collages where I put indigenous faces on people with suits and ties. It brought two histories together, like me in some ways. I was talking with Tomas (Ybarra-Frausto) the other day about what people are calling Post-Chicano art. And he said, "There is no Post-Chicano art, there's just Chicano art, and whatever comes next will be something else." That's the transformation things are going through.
BL: : So is your work nontraditional?
RT: : I guess so. At the three-person Dia de los muertos exhibit (Jundt Art Museum, Spokane, October-December, 2001), the other artists (non-Latinos) were more "Mexican" than I was. I had already done that, and I wanted to challenge myself, tear down some barriers. My installation, Amor que mata, came...