NOPAL, the cactus, model of resilience and nourishment, able to survive everywhere, respected for its inherent ability to produce the sweetest of fruits even in the most inhospitable of climates; the NOPAL is the defining symbol, it inspires the artwork and forms the fashion, it is the heart of our company.

“I get up early,” Daniel Sanchez says, then quickly adds, “Nopal rises early.” As he outlines his schedule for the day—cooking and eating breakfast with his son, then out the door by 6:45, carpooling to San Francisco for classes, coming back and working on an album cover for Salvador Santana, printing out his online orders—you realize that Daniel’s outlook on life, the way he lives and raises his family, and his company, Nopal Apparel, all flow together. Like the KRS-1 line “I don’t represent hip-hop, I am hip-hop,” Daniel is Nopal.

And as he points out, you probably are too. “Nopal is a way of life,” he says. “It’s the idea of a Chicano, a person who's from another place, but lives [and flourishes] in a new place. And it’s not just the Chicano experience, but the experience of people everywhere.”

Since first hustling shirts in 2001 Daniel has transformed his artistic vision into a unique apparel brand. Under the name and symbol of Nopal, this wearable art "celebrates those who le echan ganas todos los días (give it their all every day), those who courageously have given voice and impetus to cultural and social movements." Here are a few things he said about the progression:

1. When and how did Nopal start?

In 2001-2002, I was studying in Grenada, Spain. There was this gypsy hustler: he watched me draw and encouraged me to silkscreen my drawings, and then I started selling them in front of La Plaza Nueva.

Two months after I came back to SF State I started printing up again. It was still just hustling, coming to class with a suitcase full of shirts [laughs]. But then I started printing ladies’ shirts and things starting popping up.

Then you get into this blurry world of “am I just hustling shirts or am I gonna try and get more organized with this, try and create a line, brand this company and put in other things for people to see?”

It went from suitcase - dirt-grinding - hustling, to 2003 , when I went to my first trade show in Vegas. I began signing up for street festivals: Carnaval, San Jose Jazz Festival, Dia de los Muertos, Art and Soul [labor day weekend in Oakland] and it was through the street festivals that Nopal solidified their grass-roots support.  Read More...