The Oregon Cartoon Project is delighted to announce that we awarded one of our two Anne Elizabeth Richardson Fellowships for 2024/25 to Natalie Garcia.
Natalie Garcia is a third-year undergraduate at the University of Oregon, majoring in Ethnic Studies and minoring in Comic and Cartoon Studies as well as Art. Born and raised in southern Oregon, and coming from a first-generation Mexican family, Natalie has always felt a strong connection to the beauty of the place around them, and has been curious as to how the structures of power and history play out in Oregon. Being a queer, Latine artist scholar, Natalie is acutely familiar with the importance of cultural art and history bring celebrated in Oregon and around the world.
As her project, Natalie Garcia plans to create an educational comic that focuses on Oregon art history, and the general underrepresented facets of Oregon history. This comic will be adaptable for Oregon educators to use in their classrooms, while fulfilling the Secondary Social Studies (6-12), History, and Civics standards of the Oregon Department of Education.
Focusing on those from minority backgrounds that are underrepresented in Oregon’s history, Garcia plans to highlight Oregon’s past Black Exclusion Laws, United Farm Workers, Migrant Workers, and Indigenous art. Garcia’s comic will take an art-based focus to the activism and resistance demonstrated by these communities during Oregon’s history.
Congratulations and welcome, Natalie!