“I use art as a decolonizing tool to educate and heal Intergenerational Trauma.” --Joe Galarza

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Joe Galarza is a Xica-indio visual artist and musician raised in the El Sereno neighborhood on the east side of Los Angeles, CA. He grew up in an economically-disadvantaged community where he was exposed to the violence of poverty, drugs and gangs at an early age. As a result, Joe used his childhood experiences in East LA to educate at-risk youth on the healing power of combining Art, Music and culture to combat societal oppression and intergenerational trauma.

Currently, Joe teaches art and music at correctional facilities, universities, community centers and emergent sites of collective action like Standing Rock. He also performs in the internationally renowned music group “Aztlan Underground'' which he has been a member of since 1993. Joe began playing bass guitar at age 17, and has since toured the world including Native reservations across the United States and venues in Spain, France, Australia, Venezuela and Canada utilizing music as a tool to educate and empower marginalized communities. His festival performances also include the Adelaide Festival of the Arts in Australia, Under the Volcano in Vancouver, Canada, World Youth Festival in Venezuela, 18th St. Studios’ “War as a Way of Life,” X-Games at the Staples Center in 2005, “Smoke Out” 2001 in Los Angeles, FNX First Nation Experience Studio 49 2019 and many others.

Joe has opened for Manu Chao, Rage Against the Machine, Maldita Vecindad, Fermin Muguruza, Control Machete, Todos Tus Muertos. He has also shared the stage with Mos Def, KRS-One, Malo, Talib Kweli, Dead Prez, and Medusa, among countless other incredible and respected musicians.

In addition to the Bass, Joe also composes using native instrumentation such as wooden and clay flutes, drums, and rattles. He also played with Soul Conference, an experimental jazz fusion project and views collaboration across cultures and genres as fundamental to celebrating diversity and solidarity.

Joe’s current projects include “Genetic Windsongs Murals”, that uses visual storytelling to record indigenous oral traditions. His experiences with art and education have also led him to teach in correctional facilities and afterschool programs with at-risk youth at Camp Rockey , Afflerbaugh Juvenile Hall , Paige Juvenile Hall and Los Angeles County Facilities as well as Ventura County CYA facilities . As an artist in residence in various indigenous communities, Joe was also invited to create a visual history of each community by gathering stories passed down through oral tradition. Placing stories in a visual and historical context through mural work let him to work on projects at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Pine Hill Indian Reservation, Pinoleville Pomo Indian Reservation and presently with Tongva Elder Julia Bogany and fellow artist Violet Luxton at Pitzer College to preserve Tongva women’s history and raise awareness for murdered and missing indigenous women.

Joe’s indigenous family background is Penatuka Numunu /Tepehuan Odami Nations. He strives to preserve and celebrate the diverse cultures of indigenous people of the so-called “Americas” through art and music as well as provoke questions and address urban social issues like the conditions he overcame in East Los Angeles. Joe strives to bring resources through the arts that can serve as an alternative to destructive paths.

In Joe’s words, “Without awareness of history, we cannot grow individually or as a community. By knowing the past, we can have a foundation for the future with dignity, self-knowledge, and pride. By showing that I came from the same place these youth are struggling at, my goal is to share with them that they can change through self-determination for the better despite any odds.”

Joe Galarza is currently working on a one-man multi-media exhibit to show the spectrum of his work called “The Colonized Colonizer'