Culture Clash is an Chicano

Chicano

The terms "Chicano" and "Chicana" are used in reference to U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. However, those terms have a wide range of meanings in various parts of the world. The term began to be widely used during the Chicano Movement, mainly among Mexican Americans, especially in the movement's...

 American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 performance troupe composed of the writer-comedians Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas, and Herbert Sigüenza. Their work is of a satirical

Satire

Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 nature.

Culture Clash was founded on May 10, 1984 at the Galería de la Raza

Galería de la Raza

Galería de la Raza is a non-profit art gallery and artist collective that serves the heavily-Latino population of San Francisco's Mission District. GDLR mounts exhibitions, hosts poetry readings, workshops, and celebrations, sells works of art, and sponsors youth and artist-in-residence programs...

 in San Francisco's Mission District, by the writers José Antonio Burciaga

José Antonio Burciaga

José Antonio "Tony" Burciaga was a Chicano artist, poet, and writer who explored issues of Chicano identity and American society.-Early life:...

, Marga Gómez, Monica Palacios, Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas, and Herbert Sigüenza. The founding date is significant due to the importance of Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo is a holiday held on May 5. It is celebrated nationwide in the United States and regionally in Mexico, primarily in the state of Puebla, where the holiday is called El Dia de la Batalla de Puebla...

 to Mexican-Americans, the shared ethnicity of the majority of collaborators. Montoya and Sigüenza had both been involved in the Chicano art scene in the San Francisco Bay Area

San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...

, Montoya being the son of Chicano poet

Chicano poetry

Chicano poetry is a branch of American literature written by and primarily about Mexican Americans and the Mexican-American way of life in society. The term "Chicano" is a political and cultural term of identity specifically identifying people of Mexican descent who are born in the United States...

, artist, and activist José Montoya

José Montoya

José Montoya is a poet and an artist from Sacramento, California. He is one of the most influential Chicano bilingual poets. He has published many well-known poems in anthologies and magazines...

, and Sigüenza having been involved in the art collective La Raza Graphics, which created works of graphic art

Graphic design

Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...

 to support campaigns of the Chicano Movement

Chicano Movement

The Chicano Movement of the 1960s, also called the Chicano Civil Rights Movement, also known as El Movimiento, is an extension of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement which began in the 1940s with the stated goal of achieving Mexican American empowerment.-Origins:The Chicano Movement...

.

Culture Clash's works range from comedic sketches to full-length plays

Play (theatre)

A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...

 and screenplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

s, all of which feature political satire

Political satire

Political satire is a significant part of satire that specializes in gaining entertainment from politics; it has also been used with subversive intent where political speech and dissent are forbidden by a regime, as a method of advancing political arguments where such arguments are expressly...

 and social satire. The troupe's members have appeared separately and together in several films and received numerous awards, commissions and grants. In 1993 they filmed 30 episodes of a sketch comedy television series, also called Culture Clash. Some of them were aired on Fox

Fox Broadcasting Company

Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...

 affiliates. In 2006 they premiered two new full-length plays, the comedy Zorro in Hell

Zorro in Hell

Zorro in Hell is a satiric play by Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas and Herbert Siguenza, collectively known as Culture Clash. It is a profile of the legendary hero Zorro from a Latino viewpoint....

and "SF: The Mexican Bus Mission Tour with CC!"
Their works have been collected in two volumes, Culture Clash: Life, Death and Revolutionary Comedy and Culture Clash in AmeriCCa: Four Plays. Their papers are housed at the California State University, Northridge

California State University, Northridge

California State University, Northridge is a public university in Northridge, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, California, United States....

 (CSUN) Oviatt Library

Oviatt Library

The Oviatt Library serves the California State University, Northridge campus, located in Northridge district of the northern San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, California. The library is named for Delmar T...

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External links

• Official site
• "20 Years of Culture Clash", a virtual exhibit from the Latino Cultural Hearitage Digital Archives at CSUN
• Culture Clash collection at the Latino Cultural Heritage Digital Archives at CSUN
• THE NEW LATC Official Site