Dr. Osa Hidalgo de la Riva (aka “Dr. Eagle Bear”) is a Queer, Chicanx filmmaker and visual artist who has been creating and collaborating across the world–with a focus on the Southwest–since the mid 1960s. Osa is part of a larger familial legacy dedicated to social justice which is rooted in feminism, Indigeneity, and queer celebration. The history of the de la Riva women is emblematic of the ways mixed-race and Latinx families have navigated race, class, sexuality, gender, and colorism within their family and society.
At the age of sixteen, Osa was diagnosed with malignant thyroid cancer. The experience--being diagnosed, undergoing treatment, grappling with existential fears at an early age--changed the trajectory of her life, as she describes in her Cancer Testimonio, 2017 film below:
Osa has intentionally lived her life to the fullest, collecting numerous accolades and awards along the way. She has a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts in the Critical Studies Division, along with 3 Masters Degrees from San Francisco State and UC Santa Cruz. She taught an American Cultures course Ethnicity and Race in Contemporary Film at the University of California-Berkeley, from 2008-2013. “Dr. Eagle Bear” has lectured and spoken at numerous film festivals, seminars, community centers, and universities throughout California, across the United States, Mexico, Canada, and Europe. Her film “Mujeria I: The Olmeca Rap” premiered at the Kabuki Theater in San Francisco; “Mujeria II:Primitive and Proud” debuted at the Roxie Cinema, SF. Both were later distributed by Women Make Movies, NY. Her film “Two Spirits: Native Lesbians and Gay Men” is distributed by Third World Newsreel, NY. In 2007, her animation artwork “Las Olmecas” was included in 500 years of Chicana Women’s History, edited by Elizabeth “Betita” Martinez. She received the Tortuga Award from Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambios Social (MALCS) in 2006. In 2012, she was the recipient of the Chancellor’s Public Scholar Award from UC-Berkeley’s Ethnic Studies Department.
Her work is lead by seven artistic and philosophical beliefs she has named “7 Mujerista Principles”: Confidence in Identity, Willfulness, Education, Activism, Inclusivity, Community, Transformation. The de la Riva women highlighted in this archive have contributed to important social and political movements in the Southwest, primarily around labor organizing, Chicana/o rights, liberation of Womyn of Color, and children’s rights–often intersecting with pioneering leaders and organizations. Each de la Riva woman’s life story maps to a mujerista principle and that relationship is illustrated in the timeline at the bottom of this page and the objects associated with each woman. Hope you enjoy our family, this process has been very vulnerable and we tried to show a bit of our humanness, dis-eases, collaborations and conflicts, life and love and happiness with each other and in bringing in extended family from our circle and further beyond.
A note on language: Inventing words and remixing existing language is an essential component of Osa’s creative and intellectual processes. Due to undiagnosed neurodivergency/neurodiversity, formalized schooling was both difficult and inconsistent early in her life. Coupled with the class discrimination she experienced in academic settings, Osa developed an intentional habit of deconstructing words, adding hyphens to emphasize her intended meaning, or splicing together words seemingly at odds–in particular those she found oppressive or limiting–as an act of defiantly affirming her identities. Examples include: “dis-ease”, “womyn”, “be-ings”, “re-evolution” (in place of “revolution”),“long-term care[less]” Osa’s vocabulary is used throughout the archive, with added definitions included only where necessary.
The de la Riva’s, like many families, refer to each other using nicknames. In an attempt to infuse this page with a bit of their spirit, those nicknames will be used once each family member has been formally identified. It is also important to note that Lola’s children decided to collectively adopt “de la Riva” once she revived the name from her maternal lineage–though each child decided on their own spelling.