Dr. Rose Salseda’s forthcoming manuscript, A Cry For Justice: Chicano Art and the Cultivation of Humanity at Stanford University, recovers the dynamic 50-year mural-making legacy to ensure that its impact on education, the arts, and students is remembered, respected, and valued for generations to come.

Since 1974, visiting artists, students, and staff have made over 20 large-scale paintings and murals at Stanford University. Coinciding with the first major cohorts of Chicano students, the artworks reflect the grassroots and institutional efforts to diversify the university, build community, and work in solidarity to create a fair and just world.

To recuperate this important history, Dr. Salseda developed the research project, Latinx Art Beyond Museum Walls (2023-25), and onboarded a team of students and independent scholars. Together they conducted archival research, interviewed artists and alumni, wrote informative texts, commissioned a new artwork, and made a documentary film.

Prior to this research, in 2019-20, Dr. Salseda worked with Residential & Dining Enterprises and Gina Hernandez, a former Stanford arts administrator, to restore three murals and paintings at Stern Dining Hall. In 2025, she began collaborating with Mark Shunney, the new Public Art Manager, to restore additional campus murals.

Click on the images below for mural essays and additional project info.