MISSION
Our mission is to reflect and create cultura pa’ la raza! As writers and artists, we disseminate kernels of multi-media cultura across the four directions to engender and sustain radical, frontline resistance. We are committed to publishing Xicanx/Mexican/Indigenous artists rooted in decolonization.
VISION
Our vision is to grow milpas of radical, cultural art, everywhere. We envision making engaging and accessible art to all our communities and that it be a tool to inspire world-buiding, build people power, and engage our communities in struggle. In doing so, we seek to evolve nuestra cultura through Indigenous-centered, pro-earth, pro-working class narratives and seeds.
OUR GUIDING PRINCIPLES
- Maíz Poppin’ Press does resistance writing & artmaking:
Our art is rooted in resilience and resistance: it does not cater to whiteness; nor does it dwell on despair. Instead, resistance writing & artmaking is unapologetically political and grapples with 3 key questions: who are we, what is our material condition, and what can be done about it. We make art for liberation: our art is a call to action.
- Maíz Poppin’ Press incites decolonization:
Decolonization isn’t a metaphor; it requires us to ‘leave behind germs of rot’ imposed on us, and be in active relationship with the land, solidarity with Indigenous struggles, and build sustainable alternatives to settler colonialism, in our art and in real-life.
- Maíz Poppin’ Press inspires radical imagination:
We are committed to art that inspires radical imagination and bold world-building and futurisms.
A Raza/Xicanx futurism
Blooms from the ruins
And ashes of racial capitalism
Sprouting from the decomposed flesh
Left behind by the monstrosities
Of (nuclear) genocide and empire.
Our bodies are starships
Our vision is our star map
Of future utopías
That emerge from dreams
Built by our own hands.
We steer our bodies
Past moons and asteroids
Until we land on a new world
Of our own imagination.
Our starship is rooted
In radical Indigenous-centered lineages
We harvest maíz kernels and poetic economies
A future worth landing on where everyone
Is liberated: without borders / walls / displacement / immigration status / capitalism / exploitation / surveillance / imperialism / white supremacy / xenophobia / misogyny / machismo / transphobia / imprisonment / deportations /
- Maíz Poppin’ Press operates as a collective:
Maíz Poppin’ Press operates horizontally without bosses or hierarchies. We are artists and writers that see ourselves as part of a broader collective, community and liberation movement ecosystem; not just as individuals.
We reject extractive practices of corporate-structured art institutions and instead build on the values of solidarity, mutual skills-sharing, and authentic expression. We embrace shared labor, mutual accountability, and participatory decision-making. In order to walk the talk (our praxis), decisions at Maíz Poppin’ Press are made democratically through a ——- model, from what we publish, to what we distribute, and how we structure our labor.