Juan Ortiz
We met Juan by chance, when Francisco Delgado gave him a call as we were driving around town. While Juan was working on a project in Dallas at that time, we arranged a meeting for the following week. Not knowing what to expect, we sat down with Juan at his dining room table, in his father’s home, surrounded by family. What followed was about three hours of conversation, with Juan entirely expanding our definitions of border culture, the Chicanx foundation of the city, and the impacts of mass incarceration and militarization on the region. He also discussed the importance of the linkages he’s formed with Black, Indigenous, Queer, and other undocumented Latinx folks through his organizing work in Baltimore.
As an activist, artist, and community organizer, Juan is truly extraordinary. He’s currently a doctoral student in Mexican American studies at the University of Arizona, splitting time between Tucson, El Paso, where he continues his organizing work with a direct action group called Movimiento Cosecha, and Baltimore, where he maintains relationship with artist and activist communities involved in movements like Black Lives Matter. Learn more about how he uses community arts as social change praxis in the video below.
From his bio: “Juan Ortiz is an artist, activist and community organizer who was most recently Creative Alliance’s Robert W. Deutsch Foundation Fellow for 2016 – 2017. Ortiz is a graduate of Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in the Community Arts Masters in Fine Arts program. He is presently a doctoral student and fellow in Mexican American studies at the University of Arizona. He also holds a Masters in Art and Public Policy from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and a Bachelor of Arts in Multi-disciplinary studies from the University of Texas, El Paso. For his work in the Southeast Baltimore Latinx community, Ortiz was selected as a Community Partner to the White House Action Summit in 2015. Ortiz’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and amongst his most recent honors has also been designated a Baltimore Social Innovation Fellow (2016) and is a currently an Open Philanthropy Project Fellow and was recently a guest speaker at CityLab Baltimore hosted by the Atlantic magazine, the Aspen Institute and Bloomberg Philanthropy. Originally from El Paso, Ortiz has lived, worked and studied in East Baltimore for the past four years although he has participated on various nation wide and international social justice campaigns. Among them, the Force, Border Tour of the Monument Quilt and Cosecha national campaign for immigration reform.”
