A Racial Justice Initiative & Pitzer College Art Galleries Collaboration

Friday, February 12, at 5 p.m.

Associate Dean and Professor of Political Studies and Chicano Studies Adrian Pantoja in conversation with filmmaker Paul Espinosa

Join us for a conversation with Associate Dean and Professor of Political Studies and Chicano Studies Adrian Pantoja and filmmaker Paul Espinosa on the music and activism of Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez.

Espinosa’s feature-length documentary Singing Our Way to Freedom profiles Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez, a musician, composer, and community activist from San Diego. From the early days of the Chicano civil rights movement alongside Cesar Chavez through today’s immigrants’ rights protests, Ramon Sanchez used music to energize the struggle for social justice. Espinosa’s film examines how Sanchez’s career as a musician was interwoven with the Chicano movement. A portrait of one charismatic musician and activist, it revisits a pivotal era in American history and provokes dialogue about the many hurdles that had to be overcome to secure equal rights for Mexican Americans. 

Singing Our Way to Freedom, now available to the Pitzer Community on Sakai, was purchased with funds from President Oliver’s Racial Justice Initiative and is part of the campus-wide programming for Pitzer College Art Galleries’ Manifesto: Eight-Minutes and Forty-Six Seconds project, which focuses on protest songs in Spring 2021.

This event is produced in collaboration with the Office of Alumni and Family Engagement.