The couple became deeply involved in the organization. Virginia became the program director for several years and Cardenas served on the board of directors, including a stint as president.

Over the years, Cardenas and Virginia traveled frequently to Mexico City, Sante Fe and San Francisco to purchase paintings, crosses, ceramics, prints and pottery that cover practically every inch of Cardenas’ ranch home in Chandler.

Cardenas said he considers the collection an embrace of the Mexican heritage he and Virginia shared.

“It’s pride,” Cardenas said during an interview at his home.

“Virginia was born in Mexico. She came here when she was eight,” Cardenas said. “And I never considered myself Mexican American because when I was growing up, those terms weren’t used. So we were Mexicans.”

After Virginia died in 2012, Cardenas commissioned East L.A.-born artist George Yepes to paint a portrait of her. Yepes is best known as the artist who painted the cover of the 1988 Grammy Award-winning album by Los Lobos, “La Pistola y El Corazón.”

At first, Yepes turned down the commission after Cardenas showed her photo of Virginia, who was known for her dazzling smile.

“I can’t do it,” Cardenas recalled Yepes saying. “She’s always smiling. I don’t do smiles.”

A few weeks later, Yepes emailed Cardenas. “I think I can do it.”

The 7-foot-tall portrait Yepes painted of Virginia now hangs in Cardenas’ living room, where it dominates one of the walls. Cardenas considers it his most treasured piece, along with a portrait by a different artist of his three grown sons when they were young.

“The funny thing about this is she was pretty short, she was barely five foot tall. This painting is seven feet. And she’s sitting down. So talk about bigger-than-life-size,” Cardenas told a group of visitors during one of his tours.

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Home is an art gallery, with frequent visitors

Cardenas frequently opens his home to visitors, serving as docent as he escorts visitors from room to room, telling stories along the way about various pieces of artwork.

In addition to the personal tours, Cardenas hosts an annual open house to showcase the ofrendas he creates in honor of Dia de los Muertos. At his Day of the Dead open house in November 2025, during the Trump administration’s ongoing mass deportation effort, one of the ofrendas focused on immigration. The ofrenda included photos of Cardenas’ relatives from Mexico, along with numerous quotes by Pope Francis that Cardenas printed out and framed.

“Migrants and refugees are not pawns on the chessboard of humanity,” read one quote.

“It is necessary to respond to the globalization of migration with the globalization of charity and cooperation, in such a way as to make the conditions for migrants more humane,” read another.

Cardenas also hosts an annual Los Tres Reyes Magos party every January in honor of Three Kings Day, a Christian holiday that is popular in Mexico and Latino America and marks the biblical visit of the three kings to the baby Jesus. This year’s party, attended by some of the most influential people in Arizona, will be Jan. 10.

One of the most powerful pieces on display in his home is a painting Cardenas commissioned as a tribute to the victims of the 2022 mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. The shooting killed 19 students and two teachers, and injured 21 others. The artwork, which Cardenas displays in his dining room, also was painted by Yepes, the artist who painted the portrait of Virginia.

The painting depicts a woman draped in an American flag, her arms and hands outstretched in the shape of a crucifix, with swords piercing her exposed heart, while doves flutter around her head, wrapped in a crown of thorns.

‘Everything they have in the collection was for them’

One of the most striking pieces is a massive Talavera ceramic jar created by artist and restauranteur Gennaro Garcia, a native of San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, who now lives in Phoenix. Garcia created the piece in Puebla, Mexico, where he studied the hand-painted Mexican ceramic artform that blends Spanish and Indigenous influences.

Cardenas had the piece shipped to his home, where he had to remove the table from his kitchen to make room for the artwork, which towers over six feet in height.

Garcia said he strived for years to have his artwork included in the Cardenas’ collection.

“As an artist, you want you want to be in in collection that you admire,” Garcia said. “His collection was already so good, and I wanted to have my name associated with those other artists” and with Virginia and Jose Cardenas as collectors.

Garcia describes the collection as a love story between the couple.

“Everything they have in the collection was for them,” Garcia said. “I always remember them standing in front of the art, talking about it, and then deciding to buy it” as a couple.

Garcia said he was not aware of a larger personal collection of Mexican and Mexican American artwork in Arizona.

“It’s the biggest one. Easy,” Garcia said.

Cristina Cardenas, a Mexican-born artist based in Tucson, agreed.

“In Arizona, to tell you the truth, I haven’t met anybody else with a bigger or more rich collection” especially of Mexican-American and Arizona artists, said Cardenas, who is not related to Jose.

She has sold numerous paintings to Cardenas. The collector also has commissioned her to paint several murals at his home, including a mural of a smiling Virginia that adorns an outdoor wall in the home’s sizable patio, and a mural of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo that greets visitors to his home.

The artist said Cardenas and Virginia have supported many artists through their collecting. They have played a role in opening the door for Latino artists to sell their work to other collectors, Cardenas said, noting that she once sold a print to former Arizona governor and U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano through an introduction by Cardenas.

“It’s a commitment to represent our people, our communities, and to represent Mexico and the really highest rich cultural history that it has,” the artist said.

She noted that visitors will notice that Cardenas and Virginia have had a strong interest in collecting female figurative art. They were influential in shifting Xico artists away from depictions of low-riders and other traditional Chicano symbols toward prints and paintings that celebrate female figurative art.

Cardenas the artist, and others, often wonder what will happen to the massive collection after Cardenas is gone.

“It has to be preserved and it has to stay together. That’s my recommendation,” Cardenas the artist said.

Collection is a priceless legacy

Jose Cardenas said he isn’t sure what will become of his collection. He knows that some of the pieces will be passed down to his children and family, including the portrait of Virginia. The rest may go the Hispanic Research Center at Arizona State University, he said.

In the meantime, his collection continues to expand. He recently mounted two new pieces by renowned contemporary American artist Ayana Jackson, who reconstructs the portraiture of the 19th and early 20th centuries to, according to her bio, “assess the impact of the colonial gaze on the history of photography.”