This document is a letter addressed to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and signed by Artists of the Fifth Sun Exhibition. It was written in response to the review of the exhibition The Fifth Sun: Contemporary/Traditional Chicano and Latino Art by Alfred Frankenstein in the Chronicle, which the artists declare was not only incorrect, but also divisive. The letter confronts the statements made by Frankenstein regarding “ethnic gangsterism” and the “vulgarized forms” derived from the Mexican muralists. In closing, there is an acknowledgment of the benefits of constructive criticism, but also a reiteration that in journalistic art criticism, there is no space for “value laden terminology, cultural insensitivity, racist prejudices, offensive implications and innuendos.” The Artists of the Fifth Sun Exhibition conclude with a request for a public apology and retraction of the article by Frankenstein.

This letter was endorsed by the thirty-seven artists in The Fifth Sun: Contemporary/Traditional Chicano and Latino Art exhibition, along with the Centro de Artistas Chicanos in Sacramento, California, and Alfredo Rivas of La Raza Studies at San Francisco State University. The review (see doc. No. 1127272) and letter are good examples of the reception given to Chicano/Latino art by some mainstream art critics, especially during the first two decades of the Chicano Movement in the 1960s and 70s. The Fifth Sun exhibition was organized by Ralph Maradiaga, the co-director of San Francisco’s Galería de la Raza. It was presented as a traveling exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum, from October 12 to November 20, 1977, and then at the Art Gallery, University of California, Santa Barbara, from January 4 to February 12, 1978. The Fifth Sun was historically significant because it was one of the earliest exhibitions organized by Latinos for a mainstream U.S. museum. A catalog was also published with artist interviews about Chicano murals, posters, arts organizations, and the Chicano sociopolitical movement.

For some of the essays included in the exhibition catalog, see doc. No. 803306, doc. No. 796023, doc. No. 803320, doc. No. 803352, doc. No. 845662, and doc. No. 803336.