Edgar R. Ayala

Edgar is a Guatemala-born graphic artist and political activist who lives in Oakland, California. He settled as in immigrant from Guatemala in San Francisco, in 1986. His first incursion as a graphic artist was when he joined the team at La Raza Graphics Center, in San Francisco’s iconic Mission District, in 1987.  La Raza Graphics was a community based social justice organization at the forefront of the Latino/Latina organizing efforts using graphic media in the SF Bay Area. 

La Causa, (the Struggle) in the Mission was no different that the one back home in Guatemala for Edgar. So he collaborated with  other activists and movements from Central America, graphically and organizing for human and immigrant rights. Another one of his footholds in The SF Mission was be becoming graphic designer of the outmost political printing shop in SF, A. Maciel Printing.

Still linked to social justice causes in Guatemala he went-on to be part of a team led by Vesper Society, an organization trying to re-boot the stalled Guatemalan UN sponsored Geneva peace talks on Guatemala, a series of "off-the-record" round tables in 1996. Shortly after the historic Peace Accords were singed in Guatemala on December 29, 1996.

These roundtables brought over 40 Guatemalan representatives from civil society, labor, academy, church and government —including the infamous Guatemala Arm Forces ruled perpetrators of genocide by a recent high court ruling in the country.

In 1998 Edgar took a free lancing approach to his graphic work by lending his skills to local and transnational organizations advancing immigrant rights and other worldly causes.  Grassroots Publishing was funded as an independent graphic design studio in 1998. Since it has produced a myriad of identity and outreach materials in both English ad Spanish or multilingual format.
Affiliations:

• The Latino Advisory Council at the Oakland Museum of California, OMCA
• Member of the Founding Committee of NALACC, National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities, most recently know as Alianza Americas
• Board President of the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, Berkeley, California, a faith based organization at the forefront of political asylum for immigrants in Northern California
• Board member and once President of the Central American Resource Center, CARECEN•SF, an immigrant rights services organization in San Francisco
• Member of the Host Committee of Network in Solidarity With The People of Guatemala (NISGUA), an focused on human and territorial rights in Guatemala
• Member of the Circle, a governing body at the Oakland Catholic Worker in Oakland, California, a house of hospitality for Latin American and other immigrants
• ​Founding member of the Guatemalan Coalition of Guatemalan Immigrants, CONGUATE