Foster analyzes the imagery of ten distinctive artists who offer a range of approaches to portraying Chicano life. The production of each artist is examined as an ideological interpretation of how Chicano experience is constructed and interpreted through the medium of photography, in sites ranging from the traditional barrio to large metropolitan societies.

David William Foster (1940?2020) was a Regents Professor of Spanish and women and gender studies at Arizona State University. Over his career, he authored more than fifty books, including Picturing the Barrio: Ten Chicano Photographers; El Eternauta, Daytripper, and Beyond: Graphic Narrative in Argentina and Brazil; and Argentine, Mexican, and Guatemalan Photography: Feminist, Queer, and Post-Masculinist Perspectives.