There is a version of black-and-grey tattooing that borrows the palette and calls itself Chicano. Chuco Moreno is not interested in that version. “Just because it’s black and gray or because they looked in a glamor magazine and took a white girl model and put clown makeup on her, they consider it Chicano tattooing,” he told OC Weekly in a 2016 feature. “When you say the term ‘Chicano style,’ that’s a whole culture of people.” Moreno has spent his career making the distinction in ink.
He works out of Church Street Tattoo at 115 S Church Street in Grass Valley, California — a small Sierra Nevada foothill city that is a long way, geographically, from the Central Valley barrio that made him. The “95237” in his Instagram handle is the zip code for Lockeford, in San Joaquin County, and it functions as a permanent statement of origin. His website puts the arc plainly: he began tattooing as an expression of passion for his people and culture, spent years tattooing in California’s barrios as a youngster, made what he calls “the big mistakes in life,” paid the price, and eventually set out to become a known tattooer and a healthy human being. By 2014 he was traveling the world with his craft.
The work itself centers on the hyna — the chola figure — rendered in bold, deliberate line work that owes more to neighborhood tradition than to the hyperdetailed photo-realism that dominates contemporary black-and-grey. The Merced County Times called him “a renowned Chicano artist and tattoo specialist” when he led an artist talk at Kreepy Kawaii gallery in downtown Merced in 2022. He has been featured multiple times in Tattoo Life — in print in Issue 118 and in online editorials on Chicano and fine-line work — and Inked included him among its roundup of legendary Chicano tattoo artists. He appears in the 2024 documentary American Homeboy, directed by Brandon Loran Maxwell and distributed by Freestyle Digital Media, alongside Estevan Oriol and Luis J. Rodriguez.
“I’ve been very conscious of not changing too much,” he has said. “If I don’t keep this alive, in the future it will not exist anymore.” That commitment shows up in his publishing record as much as in his tattooing. He has produced multiple flash art books — including the Hynas, Homegirls & Cholas series and a collaboration with Todd Noble called Ladies Night — as well as a 64-page Tattoo Life eBook of flash and sketches. His merch store sells his own-label Warpaint tattoo ink and a signature needle he calls The Real Neighborhood Single. He has also co-authored a children’s book with his wife, Amber Moreno.
At Church Street Tattoo he is currently mentoring an apprentice, Robert Benson, who is learning the trade under him directly. Appointments can be made by calling (530) 559-8641 or emailing moreno95237@gmail.com.
Elsewhere this week we look at Church Street Tattoo itself — the Grass Valley shop where Moreno works — and our news roundup covers the broader conversation around what Chicano tattooing means and who gets to claim it.
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