• Prominent Arizona attorney Jose Cardenas possesses a large private collection of Mexican and Mexican American art.
• Cardenas, who rose from humble immigrant roots, amassed the collection with his late wife, Virginia, as an embrace of their shared Mexican heritage.
• He frequently opens his home to visitors for tours and events, sharing stories about the artwork and his life.

Prominent Arizona attorney Jose Cardenas loves to show off his vast collection of Mexican and Mexican American art.

But he once made a fool of himself arguing with the legendary Mexican journalist Elena Poniatowska over a piece of artwork on display in his spacious 4,000-square-foot Chandler home.

Cardenas was giving Poniatowska a tour of his art collection during a reception he hosted for the writer. She was in town giving a lecture at Arizona State University.

“This is a self-portrait of Siqueiros,” Cardenas remembers telling Poniatwoska, referring to David Alfaro Siqueiros, one of Mexico’s three most famous muralists.

Poniatowska took a look at the sketch and shook her head, “No it’s not.”

The two got into a back and forth, with Cardenas continuing to insist the man depicted in the painting was Siqueiros.

“That’s what they told me when I bought it at the gallery in San Francisco,” Cardenas remembers telling the Mexican author.

Finally Cardenas backed down, thinking, “She’s getting up in years. I’m not going to embarrass her and argue with her.”

A few days later, Cardenas was flipping through TV channels. He came across a PBS documentary about the 1970 Chicano riots in East Los Angeles. The documentary highlighted a portrait Siqueiros had painted in homage to Ruben Salazar, the Los Angeles Times journalist killed by a tear gas canister fired by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy during the protests.

Poniatowska was right. The figure in the painting was not Siqueiros, the Mexican muralist. It was indeed Ruben Salazar, the Los Angeles Times journalist, as painted by Siqueiros.

Cardenas tells this story when he gives tours of his art collection to visitors. They break out in laughter.

“You were mansplaining” one visitor told him. “No, I was being an idiot,” Cardenas said, “because why would you argue with her, of all people. She knew (Siqueiros). She wrote about him. She interviewed him. Not the person to say, ‘No, you are wrong.’”

Cardenas built prestigious career from humble roots

The personal art tours Cardenas hosts weekly at his home are peppered with similar stories that showcase his self-deprecating humor and highlight his enormous pride in his humble upbringing and Mexican heritage.

Cardenas comes from modest working-class Mexican immigrant roots. But he rose to become one of the most prominent and successful attorneys in Arizona. He has used his considerable wealth to amass what artists say is the largest collection of Mexican and Mexican-American artwork in the state, which he shares often with visitors during various events at his home, from personal tours to his annual post-Christmas bash.

Born in 1952, Cardenas is the son of an immigrant dad from the Mexican state of Sinaloa, and a Mexican-American mom. Cardenas grew up in Vegas Heights, a working-class Hispanic neighborhood west of Las Vegas that was still segregated. His father, Fortunato Cárdenas Sánchez, had a sixth-grade education. He worked as a foreman for construction company that laid pipelines. He was killed in a work accident when Cardenas was 15.

His mother, Gloria Frances Gómez Vigil, was born in a small town in northern Nevada to Mexican immigrant parents who eventually moved to Las Vegas. She only attended school through eighth grade.

After his father died, Cardenas, the second-oldest of four children, wanted to quit school and work to help his family with finances. But Cardenas was a good student, and his mother insisted he stay in school and encouraged him to attend college.

Cardenas became the first person in his family to graduate from high school and then college. He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and then a law degree from Stanford.

After law school, Cardenas clerked for a federal judge in San Francisco and then moved to Arizona in 1978 to work for the powerhouse law firm Lewis and Roca. Cardenas mostly handled commercial litigation but also did pro bono work on death penalty cases. In 1999, he was named managing partner, becoming one of the few Hispanic managing partners of a major law firm in the nation.

In 2009, Cardenas left Lewis and Roca to serve as chief legal adviser and senior vice president at Arizona State University, a position he held until 2022.

For nearly 20 years, Cardenas also hosted Horizonte, a public affairs show focusing on Arizona issues through a Hispanic perspective on Arizona PBS (KAET-TV Channel 8). He stepped down in 2023. Now semi-retired, the 73-year-old Cardenas continues to serve as special senior university adviser at ASU.

Cardenas and his Mexican-born wife, Virginia, were childhood sweethearts. When Virginia turned 15, Cardenas was one of the escorts in her quinceañera coming-of-age celebration. The two then began dating in ninth grade. They married when Cardenas was 19 and Virginia was 20 by one month. She worked as a counselor at Chandler High School. She died in July 2012 of kidney cancer.

Cardenas and Virginia bought their first artwork when he was still a financially struggling law student at Stanford. The two prints Cardenas purchased from a fellow student are now among the thousands of pieces of artwork that adorn his home.

Couple made frequent trips to purchase art

Cardenas said he and Virginia were introduced to the world of Mexican and Mexican American art when they moved to Arizona and met artists Zarco and Carmen Guerrero at a party. They are the founders of Xicanindio, the original name of Xico, a nonprofit organization that promotes Latino and Indigenous art and culture.

VALENCIA, California, Jan 9 (Reuters) – America’s trade wars forced Robert Luna to hike prices on the rustic wooden Mexican furniture he sells from a crowded warehouse here, while down the street, Eddie Cole scrambled to design new products to make up for lost sales on his Chinese-made motorcycle accessories.

Farther down the block, Luis Ruiz curbed plans to add two imported molding machines to his small plastics factory.

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“I voted for him,” said Ruiz, CEO of Valencia Plastics, referring to President Donald Trump. “But I didn’t vote for this.”

All three businesses are nestled in the epitome of a globalized American economy: A lushly landscaped California business park called Rye Canyon. Tariffs are a hot topic here – but experiences vary as much as the businesses that fill the 3.1 million square feet of offices, warehouses, and factories.

Tenants include a company that provides specially equipped cars to film crews for movies and commercials, a dance school, and a company that sells Chinese-made LED lights. There’s even a Walmart Supercenter. Some have lost business while others have flourished under the tariff regime.

Rye Canyon is roughly an hour-and-a-half drive from the sprawling Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. And until now, it was a prime locale for globally connected businesses like these. But these days, sitting on the frontlines of global trade is precarious.

The average effective tariff rate on imports to the U.S. now stands at almost 17%–up from 2.5% before Trump took office and the highest level since 1935. Few countries have been spared from the onslaught, such as Cuba, but mainly because existing barriers make meaningful trade with them unlikely.

White House spokesman Kush Desai said President Trump was leveling the playing field for large and small businesses by addressing unfair trading practices through tariffs and reducing cumbersome regulations.

‘WE HAD TO GET CREATIVE’ TO OFFSET TRUMP’S TARIFFS

Rye Canyon’s tenants may receive some clarity soon. The U.S. Supreme Court could rule as early as Friday on the constitutionality of President Trump’s emergency tariffs. The U.S. has so far taken in nearly $150 billion under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. If struck down, the administration may be forced to refund all or part of that to importers.

For some, the impact of tariffs was painful – but mercifully short. Harlan Kirschner, who imports about 30% of the beauty products he distributes to salons and retailers from an office here, said prices spiked during the first months of the Trump administration’s push to levy the taxes.

“It’s now baked into the cake,” he said. “The price increases went through when the tariffs were being done.” No one talks about those price increases any more, he said.

For Ruiz, the plastics manufacturer, the impact of tariffs is more drawn out. Valencia makes large-mouth containers for protein powders sold at health food stores across the U.S. and Canada. Before Trump’s trade war, Ruiz planned to add two machines costing over half a million dollars to allow him to churn out more containers and new sizes.

But the machines are made in China and tariffs suddenly made them unaffordable. He’s spent the last few months negotiating with the Chinese machine maker—settling on a plan that offsets the added tariff cost by substituting smaller machines and a discount based on his willingness to let the Chinese producer use his factory as an occasional showcase for their products.

“We had to get creative,” he said. “We can’t wait for (Trump) to leave. I’m not going to let the guy decide how we’re going to grow.”

‘I’M MAD AT HIM NOW’

To be sure, there are winners in these trade battles. Ruiz’s former next-door neighbor, Greg Waugh, said tariffs are helping his small padlock factory. He was already planning to move before the trade war erupted, as Rye Canyon wanted his space for the expansion of another larger tenant, a backlot repair shop for Universal Studios. But he’s now glad he moved into a much larger space about two miles away outside the park, because as his competitors announced price increases on imported locks, he’s started getting more inquiries from U.S. buyers looking to buy domestic.

“I think tariffs give us a cushion we need to finally grow and compete,” said Waugh, president and CEO of Pacific Lock.

For Cole, a former pro motorcycle racer turned entrepreneur, there have only been downsides to the new taxes.

He started his motorcycle accessories company in his garage in 1976 and built a factory in the area in the early 1980s. He later sold that business and – as many industries shifted to cheaper production from Asia – reestablished himself later as an importer of motorcycle gear with Chinese business partners, with an office and warehouse in Rye Canyon.

“Ninety-five percent of our products come from China,” he said. Cole estimates he’s paid “hundreds of thousands” in tariffs so far. He declined to disclose his sales.

Cole said he voted for Trump three times in a row, “but I’m mad at him now.”

Cole even wrote to the White House, asking for more consideration of how tariffs disrupt small businesses. He included a photo of a motorcycle stand the company had made for Eric Trump’s family, which has an interest in motorcycles.

“I said, ‘Look Donald, I’m sure there’s a lot of reasons you think tariffs are good for America,” but as a small business owner he doesn’t have the ability to suddenly shift production around the world to contain costs like big corporations. He’s created new products, such as branded tents, to make up for some of the business he’s lost in his traditional lines as prices spiked.

He pulls out his phone to show the response he got back from the White House, via email. “It’s a form letter,” he said, noting that it talks about how the taxes make sense.

Meanwhile, Robert Luna isn’t waiting to see if tariffs will go away or be refunded. His company, DeMejico, started by his Mexican immigrant parents, makes traditional-style furniture including hefty dining tables that sell for up to $8,000. He’s paying 25% tariffs on wooden furniture and 50% on steel accents like hinges, made in his own plant in Mexico. He’s raised prices on some items by 20%.

Fearing further price hikes from tariffs and other rising costs will continue to curb demand, he’s working with a Vietnamese producer on a new line of inexpensive furniture he can sell under a different brand name. Vietnam has tariffs, he said, but also a much lower cost base.

“My thing is mere survival,” he said, “that’s the goal.”

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