Yolanda Lopez

Yolanda M. López (born 1942) is an American painter, printmaker, educator and film producer located in San Francisco, California. She is known for her work that focuses on the experience of Mexican American women and often challenges ethnic stereotypes associated with them.

Biography

Yolanda López is a third-generation Chicana. López and her two younger siblings were raised by her mother and her maternal grandparents in San Diego, California.

After graduating from high school in Logan Heights, she moved to San Francisco and became involved in the student movement that shut down San Francisco State University in a 1968 strike called the "Third World Strike". She also became active in the arts. During this time period, López became aware of her position within the community as she is quoted saying, "I did not become aware of our own history until 1968 when there was a call for a strike at San Francisco State, a strike for ethnic studies. I heard the men and women that led that Third World Strike speak and I understood at that point what my position was being part of this long legacy of being part of the oppressed people, just like Black people."