Per Martha Gonzales: Chican@ Artivistas: Music, Community, and Transborder Tactics in East Los Angeles (UT Press) is an auto-ethnographic account examining the rise and creative labors of self-proclaimed “Chicana artivistas” in East L.A from 1995 and into the present. A conflation of two words artista (artist) and activista (activist), artivista is a central concept in this book as I map the inception, development and philosophy of a Chican@ artivista identity and examine how artivista uses of art, music and other forms of creative expression are centered in and around an emphasis on participatory process based community engagement. Amid U.S neoliberal policies, Zapatista uprising and Pete Wilson’s anti-immigrant legislation, the 1990’s Chian@ youth art scene in East LA explored the various ways art could serve as forms of resistance; but mostly creation and resilience.