Homenage a Lydia Mendoza

Emmanuel C. Montoya

This extra large large linocut is of famed San Antonio-born Norteño musician Lydia Mendoza. The composition was based on a 1985 photograph the artist took of her in San Francisco’s Mission District as she performed one night at the Galeria de la Raza.

Lydia Mendoza (American: May 31, 1916 - December 20, 2007) was a Texas-born Tejano and conjunto musician known as "La Alondra de la Frontera" (the Lark of the Border). She learned to play guitar and sing from her grandmother and mother and began touring with her family's group, Cuartero Carta Blanca, at age eleven. Mendoza is considered the first Tejano musician to gain fame for her recorded music in North America, as well as the first woman in the Tejano world to perform solo.

Mendoza's breakthrough came in 1934 with the recording and airing of her song "Mal Hombre," a tango, which shot her to stardom overnight and set into motion her lifelong touring career. For over 60 years she continued to perform, even following a stroke in 1988, and she was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts, a Lifetime Achievement Award by Folk Alliance International, and a Texas Medal of Arts by the Texas Cultural Trust.

Mendoza died on December 20, 2007, at age 91. To honor her life, Montoya created a second version of this image in small format, published in 2008.