Event Lectures and Symposia Conversation with 2024 NEA Heritage Fellows: Chicano Muralist Fabian Debora and Rockabilly and Country Musician Rosie Flores

Join us for a conversation with two 2024 National Heritage Fellows, Chicano Muralist Fabian Debora and Rockabilly and Country Musician Rosie Flores. The artists will speak with Allina Migoni of the American Folklife Center staff about their lives, work, and experiences as artists. They will also talk about their experiences as artists of Hispanic heritage. The National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts is the highest honor our nation gives for excellence in folk and traditional arts.

In a biography that we use courtesy of the NEA, Randy Lewis, who covered pop music for the Los Angeles Times from 1981 to 2020, with special emphasis on country and Americana music, wrote:

Rosie Flores, triple-threat Texas musician, has never allowed the challenge of navigating the male-centric worlds of rock and country music slow her down. In fact, she often drew upon those challenges as source material in sharply observed songs she not only wrote and sang with authority and passion, but also brought to life musically as a widely respected lead guitarist in a string of notable bands.

A daughter of San Antonio whose musical journey also has included quality time in Austin, Los Angeles, and Nashville, Flores has adroitly absorbed, helped preserve, and extended the musical legacies of influential Texas musicians as varied as country music’s King of Western Swing Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys, blues guitar master T-Bone Walker, and Tex Mex innovator Doug Sahm.

Tapping her Mexican heritage, Flores formed Las Super Tejanas with singer-songwriter Tish Hinojosa, accordionist Eva Ybarra (2017 NEA National Heritage Fellow), Shelly Lara, and Las Madrugadoras mariachi trio.

Her esteem has only grown over the years, to the point where she and her music are included in Middle Tennessee State University’s History of Country Music courses. She was afforded a prominent spotlight position in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s exhibition “Western Edge: The Roots & Reverberations of Los Angeles Country-Rock” in Nashville.

In a biography that we use courtesy of the NEA, Gregory Boyle, S.J., Founder of Homeboy Industries and Laura Miera, Art Therapist, wrote:

Fabian “Spade” Debora’s artistic cultural work breaks our hearts, softens us, and leads us to move beyond the ideas we have about gang members and formerly incarcerated individuals. It works on us in ways to which we are little accustomed. A former incarcerated gang member, Debora’s artwork interprets a broad view of life experiences, which is aptly symbolized by his signature wide-rimmed shades. Through which, he sees tenderness and inclusivity, where low-riders transport love to places where love has not yet arrived.

In his birthplace of El Paso, Texas, and childhood community of East Los Angeles’ Boyle Heights, Debora was surrounded by the Chicano art movement’s groundbreaking cultural heritage work, which became visibly impactful in his muralism. This public art and its reflection on Chicano collective history, cultural identity, and social justice provided significant meaning in his Mexican American culture in Los Angeles. As a unique form of American art, it infused Debora’s imagination with hope during his oppressed youth. The Chicano art movement also supplied him with mural mentors whose influence was palpable in his work and in his desire to inform the broader community of the value of those who have been in gangs or incarceration.

As a first-generation Mexican American child with an incarcerated father, Debora was forced to flee to the street gang of his neighborhood for survival after being expelled from the Catholic parish school following an incident of violence. Eventually, Debora’s gang lifestyle and graffiti art resulted in adolescent detention. Through his years of subsequent incarceration, struggles with substance abuse, and its impact on his mental health, Debora continued to use art as an outlet. Self-taught, his early pencil illustrations from his incarceration are now part of the Getty Museum’s Black Book.

Upon release as a young man, Debora walked into the doors of Los Angeles’ Homeboy Industries, the world’s largest gang rehabilitation program. After completing the non-profit’s rehabilitation program, he went on to create the organization’s substance abuse program and served as a drug counselor and art class facilitator. His talents evolved as a healing arts educator committed to sharing his gifts by teaching others with similar lived experience.

In 2019, as recipient of the Homeboy Hero Award, Debora founded the Homeboy Art Academy. As a culture bearer of the Chicano movement’s visual heritage, his trauma-informed vision led to his 2020 Hilton Humanitarian Fellowship. His art accompanies Gregory Boyle’s award-winning book Forgive Everyone Everything. His public murals and paintings are showcased throughout the United States and abroad. Above all, his work gives us hope.

In Celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month
With thanks to the support of the National Endowment for the Arts