Centering on the visual aspects of music culture, Maurice Rafael Magaña will discuss the role of urban youth culture in shaping collective identity, particularly where migration, cross-culture pollination and public artwork are involved. In highlighting the perhaps surprising exchange between the Los Angeles hip hop scene and youth activists in Oaxaca, Mexico, he will illustrate not only the communicative power of art in public spaces, but also the ways in which youth culture, art, and migration can intersect to shape collective identities and community histories of struggle.

Maurice Rafael Magaña is an assistant professor of Mexican American Studies at the University of Arizona. Currently writing the manuscript for his upcoming Cartographies of Youth Resistance: Hip-Hop, Punk and the Production of Counter-Space, Magaña’s cutting-edge research focuses on the cultural politics of youth organizing, migration, urban spaces, and social movements in Mexico and the United States.