Richard Montoya at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, September 2019

Richard Montoya (born 1959) is a Chicano actor, director, producer, screenwriter, playwright, comedian, and co-founding member of the San Francisco based performance troupe Culture Clash.

Quotes

• I mean, I’m middle class. I’m upwardly mobile. I’m not a communist; I’m not a socialist. But when I visit the prisons, when I see the new homelessness in L.A., when I see a declining middle class and the growing Occupy movement in a rich-get-richer America, I find that the remnants of colonialism are alive and well. In the barrios, on the reservations, and certainly in parts of the Sonoran desert on the American side…
  • On how he still witnesses the remnants of colonialism in those less fortunate in “Interview with Water & Power writer-director Richard Montoya” in San Diego Reader

• We thought that would be fun to honor the people that do the mundane daily chores, the people that are part of the work service backbone of places like Los Angeles and Orange County…So much effort is made to vilify [these people].
  • On the comedic trio Culture Clash and how they honor their community via comedy in “Richard Montoya: 25 Years Of Laughing About Race” in NPR (2009 Aug 14)

• Luis Valdez said it long ago: The beauty and the frustration of theater is it is one permanent long shot…You never get up close in someone’s eyes. And that kind of blew me away (while shooting) a close-up. That was all new storytelling for me, and I had to figure it out on a very fast learning curve.
  • On how he transitioned into filmmaking in “Culture Clash’s Richard Montoya becomes a movie multitasker” in The Sacramento Bee (2015 Apr 13)

External links