José Montoya

José Montoya
Born	28 May 1932 Albuquerque, New Mexico
Died	25 September 2013 Sacramento, California
Occupation	Professor
Language	English and Spanish
Citizenship	United States
Genre	Chicano poetry

José Montoya (May 28, 1932 – September 25, 2013) was a poet and an artist from Sacramento, California. He was one of the most influential Chicano bilingual poets. He has published many well-known poems in anthologies and magazines. He was Sacramento's poet laureate.

He was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico and raised, along with his brother, Malaquias Montoya, in the San Joaquin Valley in California. He and his family were migrant farm workers and Montoya started helping in the fields at age nine. The experience made Montoya decide that "farm work would not be his destiny." His mother was an artist herself, stenciling images for churches and homes and creating her own pigments and his experiences assisting her helped him think about becoming an artist.

During the Korean War, he was in the United States Navy. After the Korean War, he used his GI Bill to go to college. He entered San Diego City College as an art student, Montoya later transferred to the California College of Arts & Crafts in Oakland, California. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1962. He began his career by teaching at Wheatland Union High School. Later, he earned his MA in 1971 from California State University. He taught Chicana/o studies in the Department of Art at California State University, Sacramento. Here, he worked for over twenty five years and started a unique program called the "Barrio Art Program." This program worked with student teachers who went into neighborhoods that were traditionally "under-served" in order to teach art to young people.

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