Melanie Cervantes

Melanie Cervantes
Born	Harbor City, CA

Melanie Cervantes (born in Harbor City, CA) is a Xicana artist and activist based in the Bay Area.

Cervantes grew up in a small city in the South Bay area of Los Angeles, CA.

Cervantes graduated from UC Berkeley in 2004 with a Bachelor's degree in Ethnic Studies.

Cervantes works full-time as a Senior Program Officer at the Akonadi Foundation which supports movement-building organizations working to end structural racism in the United States. While at Akonadi she co-founded the Bay Area Justice Funders Network, an alliance of funders working strengthen grantmaking for social justice movements in the Bay Area and beyond.

As an artist, Cervantes has exhibited at Galería de la Raza (San Francisco); Woman Made Gallery and National Museum of Mexican Art (Chicago); Mexic-Arte and Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center (Austin, TX); Crewest (Los Angeles); and at the Musée d'Aquitaine (Bordeaux, France). Her work is in public collections of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics, the Latin American Collection of the Green Library at Stanford, and the Hispanic Research Center at the Arizona State University as well as various private collections throughout the U.S. She formed Dignidad Rebelde with printmaker Jesus Barraza, a collaborative graphic arts project that uses principles of Xicanisma and Zapatismo to translate stories of struggle and resistance into artwork that can be put back into the hands of the communities who inspire it.

Cervantes is a member of Justseeds Collective, Taller Tupac Amaru, and the Consejo Gráfico.

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