This interview aired in the December 9, 2025 episode of Crosscurrents.
Click the button above to listen.
Located a block away from the 24th street BART station, the Mission Grafica print studio and archive has empowered public art in the Bay Area since 1982.
The studio is housed within the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts and was founded by a political refugee from Pinochet’s Coup in Chile and a Vietnam war draft resister that had a background in commercial printing.
The print studio became a home of community organizing and political protest. And today, their archive is the home of over four thousand Latino and Chicano prints that advocate for civil rights,and cultural resilience.
KALW is now hosting a gallery of some of their prints at our space in downtown San Francisco at 220 Montgommery, it is called ‘Mission Grafica: The Public’s Voice.’
The posters on display offer a living timeline of how artists have aligned beauty with justice in the face of power and change.
Hana Baba is the host of KALW's Crosscurrents. She spoke with Dr. Martina Ayala, the Executive Director at Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, about the importance of the archive.
