A third-generation Mexican American, Cheech Marin has received numerous awards for his work on behalf of Latinos, including a Creative Achievement Award from the Imagen Foundation and an ALMA Community Service Award from the National Council of La Raza and Kraft Foods. He has an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts for his contributions to the creative arts from Otis College of Art & Design and received the inaugural Legacy Award for Arts Advocacy from the Smithsonian Latino Center. He serves on the boards of the Smithsonian Latino Center and the Hispanic Scholarship Fund. As an actor, Cheech is familiar to many as one-half of the hilarious duo Cheech and Chong; together, they made eight feature films. He has since appeared in more than 20 films. In addition, Cheech directed the Broadway production of Latinologues, a collection of comedic and poignant monologues revealing the Latino experience in America. Cheech is also an author. His children’s books include Cheech and the Spooky Ghost Bus and Captain Cheech. His art books include Chicanitas: Small Paintings from the Cheech Marin Collection {size doesn’t matter}, Papel Chicano: Works on Paper from the Cheech Mar in Collection, and Chicano Visions: American Painters on the Verge. Cheech Marin holds one of the largest private collections of Chicano art in the United States, which is also recognized worldwide. Since 1988, he has amassed more than 700 paintings, prints, and sculptures. In 2001, he launched the first of now-many exhibitions of selected works from his collection: “Chicano Visions: American Painters on the Verge” traveled the nation through 2007, breaking attendance records at venues like the Smithsonian Institution and the De Young Museum in San Francisco during its groundbreaking 12-city U.S. tour. Currently touring is “Chicanitas: Small Paintings from the Cheech Marin Collection {size doesn’t m atter}”, which is now on view at the Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi. In Arizona, works that he has acquired over the past ten years are on view through January 24, 2016, at Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum in “Take 10: A Decade of Collecting by Cheech Marin,” along with the “10 Pick 10” exhibit that features ten artists selected by Marin because either their works and/or they themselves were pivotal to his collecting.