The original mural painted by Mujeres Muralistas on Balmy Alley. SFO
Photo: Patricia Rodriguez
===============================================================
ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT
Chicano
Art Movement appeared in the United States during1960s and 1970s to struggle
for social justice and protest against racial discrimination. Besides, Chicana
artists also depicted their talents through collectives, murals, and individual
paintings from groups and individuals to confirm their identity in community
and American mainstream. They gradually developed artists’ activities into
Chicana Art Movement to reveal the freedom of speech. In the American dominant mainstream
and masculinity dominant tradition, Chicana artists tried the best by hardworking
for art works and continuingly influenced the community and the country. first, murals were crucial in the Latin American communities; second, people need to
know about activities of Latina in art works. From these art works shown by groups as
Mujeres Muralistas and Co-Madres Artistas in California and individual artists
throughout the country, we were informed that numerous scholarly Chicana
artists have worked tirelessly for racial equality as well as for Chicana
feminism movement. We also knew that their widespread had profound religious
beliefs; however, modern Chicana artists used to protest against traditional
gender hegemony by their art works. Nevertheless, Latin
Americans have conducted the society through symbolic religious objects and
sacred images that helped extra elements to American art. Finally,
Chicana artists have confirmed their stances and sexualities by their talents
in art. In fact, most of them possessed high degrees in Art colleges and became effective
in art works which would support for future feminist movements.
***********
Why Did Chicana Art Movement Appear?
Paco's Tacos mural at 24th and South Van Ness, originally painted
to give Paco a competitive edge when McDonald's was opening a block
away. The wall is no longer there, covered now by a new building.
Photo: Patricia Rodriguez
Photo: Patricia Rodriguez
Chicano/a
art arose at the end of 1960s as part of the Chicano/a movements, a
national political and social mobilization of Latin ethnicities. Initiated and
led by farm workers, student activities, third party electorates, disposed land
grant owners, and critics of police brutality, Chicana art has been merged as
Latin American women artists of the United States and influenced
the American cultural diversity in mass media. The research aimed to clarify
Chicana and Latina artists might turn to Chicana artists’ movement and feminists,
for example, the liberation movements, the feminists in the groups Mujeres
Muralistas and Co- Madres artistas who contributed their performances by murals
and individual paintings to confirm Latina identity in Latino/a communities for
protesting against racial hegemony in the United States. Especially, they would
be merged in the flag of Chicano Movement calling for social justice. Latina
artists in the United States were numerous; majority of them had high education
and wanted to be capable to struggle for women’s rights and for serving
feminist movement. Also, Chicana feminist artists profoundly stated social
problems of race, class, gender and patriarchy hegemonies in their paintings;
and consequently, they used visual works to depict their
ideas against the masculinity hegemony theory in churches. Some authors
criticized that they protested against traditional commercial
stereotypes of Latina women even they were encountered
by their communities. Although Chicana artists movements were limited by hegemonic
masculinity, they made all efforts to confirm their identities in sexuality,
gender, race and even in education.
What Was The Theory to Apply for Critical Analysis in The Research?
First,
a series of key terms relevant to the research should be defined; for example, Chicano
and Chicana- Mexican male and female, murals - a large picture painted or
affixed directly on a wall or ceiling, Mujeres Muralistas – group of Latina and
Chicana artists who made formal performances in public in 1974 with
large murals for the Mission Model Cities organization , Co-Madres Artistas –
Chicana artists’ collective organization which was based in Sacramento and led by Lerma
Barbosa with others like Carmel Castillo, Laura Llano, Mareia de Socorro, and
Helen Villa, and Lucy Montoya Rhodes , Latinoamerica – the mural painted by the
Mujeres Muralistas exhibited in 1974 in Francisco, Our Lady – a small photo based digital print
by Alma Lopez in 1999 which caused a huge controversy in Santa Fe, New Mexico
in 2001, The Virgin of Guadalupe –
drawn by artists such as Ester Hernandez, Yolanda Lopez, Alma Lopez that
represented differently to the origin. These terms extracted from the sources of my
research including books and in the articles in the database of the King
Library in San Jose. First, I will use the books published by scholars who have
been teaching at schools or at universities. Next, I will use articles written
by scholars and published in the databases of the San Jose State University
Library. All articles are peer reviewed. Third, the audience of this research
will be the professor of my class who works in the Social Science Department at
SJSU and the peers who are my classmates.
Balmy Alley is located in the Mission District in San Francisco,
California. The block long alley is the best place to see the most
concentrated collection of murals in San Francisco.
the Murals (Wall Paintings)
http://www.balmyalley.com/Welcome.html
The books used in the research would be the
primary sources. First, it was the Creative
Collectives: Chicana Painters Working in Community published in 2003 by
Maria Ochoa who is currently a professor of Social Science at San Jose State University.
Next book was the Chicana and Chicano Art
published in 2009 by Carlos Francisco Jackson who is currently an assistant
professor in the Chicana/o Studies Program and is Director of Taller Arte del
Nuevo Amanecer, a community art center in Woodland, California.
Also,
I would extract several articles through the database of the library of San
Jose State University. King Library is a library of the San Jose State
University which uses OmniFile Full Text Mega a database which provides a wide
range of resources of researches. The database is useful for researches of
women’s studies, ethnic studies, art, education, social sciences and more other
fields. For my research, I would focus art and social sciences to look for
relevant articles. These relevant articles were written by the authors who
analyzed, reviewed for Chicana artists and Latino/a artist movements by visual
presentations from the late 1960s to 2000s.
Most of these articles were used to invoke for Chicana
stereotypes and Chicana sexualities protesting against political and
traditional effects. Finally, the
audience to this research would be my class and finally
the course lecturer. My course lecturer would be the consultant, the guide and
also the final grader to the research. Professor Maria Ochoa has worked in
the Department of Social Science in the University and lectured three other courses
including Women, Race & Class, Internship, and Women and Minorities in the
Social Science Department. She has currently published two more books including Shout Out: Women of Color Respond to Violence, an Anthology of Creative
Expression, co-edited with Barbara K. Ige, published in 2008.
Chicana
artists groups and single Chicana artists, they mostly desired to confirm their
identities in the American society
Dr. Maria
Ochoa the author of Creative Collectives:
Chicana Painters Working in Community,
Two groups of
Chicana artists in northern regions of California and their art movements
History
of Latina artists in California was proud of the activities of Mujeres
Muralistas and Co-Maderes Artitstas, the female Latin artists groups who contributed
murals, paintings on walls, in the regions of Oakland, San Francisco, Bay Area
and Sacramento Valley. According to Maria
Ochoa the author of Creative Collectives:
Chicana Painters Working in Community, these Chicanas had used their art
works for serving their ideas to protest against “the hegemony of mainstream
culture” (Ochoa 2003, 1). Furthermore, Ochoa described their activities were
desire to reveal their identity by self- distribution the mainstream society.
However, “tenacity”, (Ochoa 2013, xv) was the most important quality for them
to obtain influenced art works in California and some different states in the
United States. Their talents were seen by several public exhibitions, for
example, the Art/Women/California,
1950-2000: Parallels and Intersections, showed at the San Jose Museum of
Art in 2002. In this event, numerous
skillful Chicana artists such as Irene Perez, Patricia Rodriguez, and Ester Hernandez
who attended the exhibition with nearly hundred other female artists (Ochoa
2003, xvi). For series public exhibitions, they became infamous in community, the
state, as well as the nation. The successes bounded broader to public and lined
a pathway for Chicana feminist movements as a power of an “indigenous deity”
but which can threaten the “Roman Catholic orthodoxy” (Ochoa 2003, xvi).
To
merge into the liberation movement, Chicana artists had to unify together to struggle
against masculinity hegemony, a traditional hierarchy in Latino culture. According
to Ochoa, Cesar E. Chavez, a popular labor organizer of union, unified
minorities in California and enhanced the Chicanas’ role. Unfortunately, men in
Chicano movement didn’t promote these advantages to develop the Liberation
Movement. Masculine hegemony was the main tradition to resist Chicanas to enter
Latino/a movement. Ochoa analyzed this weakness:
The material and
representational space allocated to Chicanas permitted a limited range of
roles, primarily having to do with domestic matters, in particular with the
servicing of Chicano’s needs. Chicana who questioned these aspects of the
movement suffered the consequences of their feminist analyses by being labeled vendidas (sellouts) or agabachadas (anglicized). (Ochoa 2003,
18)
Gender stereotype were persistent impediments
for Chicanas to dedicate their movement and blocked the feminist critiques. Doleres
Huerta, Enriqueta Longeaux Vasquez and Marta Cotera, were activists, scholars
and columnists who criticized the gender dominance had occupied in the Chicano
movement. Furthermore, unified Chicana feminists had to voice against who
prohibited Chicanas in their “dual positionality” (Ochoa 2003, 19). Indeed,
Chicanas were capable to struggle in the “duality” as Nieto Gomez proclaimed,
“I support my community and I do not ignore the women in my community” (Ochoa
2003, 19). Thus, it was possible for two groups Mujeres Muralistas and
Co-Madres Artistas to conform their dual stands as feminists.
During 1970s there were many Mexican women artists who
claimed themselves as muralistas who were warmly interested in painting on wall
as the so- called murals. According to the author, Graciela Carrillo, Irene
Perez, and Patricia Rodriquez, these core artists painted many prominent murals
such as Latinoamerica, Para el Mercado, and Rhomboidal Parallelogram. These
murals were enjoyed and appreciated by audience during exhibitions. In fact,
murals were created by much of labor and enthusiasm of these Chicana artists as
Ochoa described:
The technical
logistics and representational concerns of mural painting, compounded by the
nuanced personal interactions among the artists, contribute to an ever-widening
series of communicative process…the ongoing commentary as audiences respond to
the mural and communicate their likes and dislikes, concerns for accuracy of
detail, and suggestions or additions to the work. (Ochoa 2003, 34)
Obviously, they
invested too many efforts for a variety roles to each project; for example,
their art works must deal with all weather conditions, physical conditions for
processing work as climbing, carrying, crossing dangerous scaffolding and
assembling or disassembling it. Furthermore, they had to possess a number skills
to adapt with the needs of food, music, dancing and how the option of blessing
or invocation in exhibitions. Generally, these Chicana artists obtained high
education in art for such complicated works; for example, the core group of
these Muralistas had attended Art College in San Francisco before creating
these murals.
The core group of these Chicana artists also worked based
on corporation and helping each other to expand their activities for the
feminist movement. They created a manifesto which presented as a new face of a
movement other than simply a Chicana artists group. For this aspect, Ochoa
explained, “The manifesto’s concluding language, ‘We offer you colors we make,’
deserves attention because it conjures the Mexican tradition of la ofrenda,”
(Ochoa 2013, 37); furthermore, through the interviews in the visits to the
exhibitions, Ochoa noted numerous details about the Mujeres Muralistas; for
instance, they expanded the murals beginning in 1973 in Balm Alley in Bay Area
where it looked like a monument including variety murals. Also, there was another
mural site at the Mission District in San Francisco. As a result, until 1993,
sixty five murals in an area of twenty seven blocks could be seen over Balm
Alley and Mission District. The Mujeres Muralistas gradually expanded its dimension
of the art works by mixing personal efforts with collaborated efforts for vast
murals; for example, the Latinoamerica
was painted by the Mujeres Muralistas in 1974 in acrylic on masonry with the
dimension of 20’ x 76’ and the Para el
Mercado was completed in 1974 with acrylic on wood in dimension of 24’ x 76’
(Ochoa 2003, 96-102).
The Mission District may be ethnically mixed, but the Inner Mission
(roughly the area from Potrero on the east to Dolores Street on the
west, and Chavez Street on the south to 20th or 21st Street on the
north) is dominated by Latino culture [by Timothy W. Drescher]
Fantasy World for Children
Besides
Latinoamerica and Para el Mercado, two other notable
murals were Rhomboidal Parallelogram and Fantasy World for Children. Rhomboidal Parallelogram was painted by
Mendez, Perez, Rodriguez, and Hernandez. This mural was constructed in six
panels for painting, ten feet high and thirteen feet long. It was exhibited at
the San Francisco Art Festival in 1975. Next, the Fantasy World for Children was painted in Mini-Park a block from La
Galeria de La Raza on Balmy Alley. Perez, Carrillo, and Rodriguez were
collaborated to create this mural. These artists painted a magical topography
having children of color, jaguars and dinosaurs, snakes, flamingos, sea turtles
etc. (Ochoa 2003, 54-55). As Ochoa described, the Latinoamerica and three other collectives deserved to be seen as a
“celebratory rather than a critique of Latina/o cultures” (Ochoa 2003, 53); also,
they desired to present spirits of Latina/o families, efforts, capacity and
roles of Mexican women who deserved to be honored and taken the legacy from
their works. Although these murals were gradually disappeared by changes of homeowners,
each of them had involved in Chicano Art Movements to keep commitment and to
strengthen their creative abilities for Chicana feminists in the mainstream. Finally,
by devotion spirit and creation ability as in their manifesto “we offer you colors
we make”, the Mujeres Muralistas had completed popular murals that no one would
underestimate the tenacity of them.
While the group Mujeres Muralistas had high education in
art and had organized themselves for successful exhibitions in San Francisco
and Bay Area, the group Co-Madres Artistas succeeded in featuring more than
fifty three exhibitions during ten years from 1992 to 2002. Working together
and corporation, they intended to perform numerous collective exhibitions in a
year. The collaboration helped the group “alleviated much of the pressure” as
in individual exhibitions (Ochoa 2003, 80). This group lived around Sacramento
and was directed by Irma Lerma Barbosa the painter of Warriors of the New Day and Chiapas
Madonna which presented as her famous paintings. According to Ochoa, Barbosa had six other Chicana
artists to be her participants in muralistas group for the exhibition during
the winter 1992. Similarly to the Mujeres Muralistas, the Co-Madres Aritistas dedicated
to community with the manifesto as “We Belong to the Community”, they aimed the
success leaned on participation for social involvement to each individual
skill; for example, although Lucy Montoya Rhodes wasn’t an artist, her
administrative skill had benefited the group of the first exhibition in 1992.
Furthermore, this group possessed advantages due to the self- reliance quality;
for instance, the Co-Madres Artistas found the way to increase funding by
mailing lot of brochures for expanding exhibitions. Clearly, they belonged
together for common success in their murals and individual paintings; for
example, each year they succeeded five collective exhibitions; furthermore, working
together, they avoided inabilities and pressures of individual exhibition to
handle more complicated works for completing on time. Their art works succeeded
thanked to the contribution of Rhodes who was skillful administrator for the
group as Castillo recalled, “She was a glue that kept us together. She did so
much then. She still does. She calls us up and ask what she can do” (Ochoa
2003, 81). Thus, union was crucial to their activities, and collaboration was the
strength for them to continue art exhibitions until 2002.
Chicana Feminists and Sexuality
It might be questionable about the motivation for these
groups to work in such lacking of financing. According to Carlos Francisco Jackson the
author of Chicana and Chicano Art,
Chicana artists desired to become feminists for “breaking social norms and
stereotypes” (Jackson 2009, 114) rather than to make livings and benefits for
families. Second, Chicana artists wanted to struggle against a paradoxical
theory which Chicanos said to support the elimination to racial oppression in
American society, but they refused Chicanas’ corporation. Moreover, Chicana
feminists wanted to protest against what Chicanos had weakened them. Jackson
gave an example that was at the Crusade for Justice’s First Chicano Youth Liberation
Conference in 1969, a number Chicanas
protested for sexual equality in the conference; especially, they requested the
termination of the “machismo” who used to attacked Chicanas with negative terms
as “Women’s Libbers” or “aggringadas” and treated Chicanas as “vendidas”, or
trators (Jackson 2009, 114). It was time for Chicanas to speak up because they have
endured simultaneous racial discrimination in the mainstream and the gender
dominance in the tradition. Alica Gaspar de Alba a Chicana scholar explained
that the radical, liberal, and Marxist feminists in the liberation movement of
middle class women were named as “white” feminism since they looked Chicana
feminism as a “form of third world feminism” (Jackson 2009, 114). The
stereotype led Chicana feminists to place class and race as critical issues
since they recognized their identities were clearly attached to “language and
culture, of nationality and citizenship, of autonomy and choice” (Jackson 2009,
114).
Latinoamérica mural on Mission Street midway between 25th and 26th, 1974.
Photo: Patricia Rodriguez
Chicana artists preferred emphasizing central
position of Chicanas through their murals. Nevertheless, they occasionally
confirmed the identity whichever was contrarily to traditional norms. Visualizing
the Latinoamerica , Ochoa commented the
Chicana mural had intended to put women playing a “central role throughout the
mural” (Ochoa 2003, 50). She added the mural nearly showed a newer sense in
image about Chicana sexuality implying a rebellion within the image. In
addition, this mural showed a new range of Latina/o ethnic mixing as African
descent. She noted that the mural had a little sense of androgyny and lesbian;
nevertheless, she concluded it presented peacefully a Chicanas’ aesthetic
expression. However, eventually Chicana artists turned to the opposition
against traditional prejudices, for example, about La Malinche who was blamed
as a traitor woman in Mexican culture and about Eva who was seen as a sin in
Christian notion (Jackson 2009, 115). According to Jackson, La Malinche was an
Aztec slavery who served Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes as an interpreter,
an advisor and even a lover. She had a son with Cortes. However, after Mexican revolution
she was blamed as a traitor in Mexican culture. Influenced by the story, Santa
Barraza a Chicana artist painted several paintings defending La Malinche
against the stereotype; for instance, in her La Machinche, she implied
Machinche as a “generous and forgiving who bore and nurtured a new
strong race, an American hybrid” (Jackson 2009, 115). The contesting idea
implied in this painting used to encounter masculinity hierarchy a chronic
oppression to Mexican women. Furthermore, other Chicana artists in the mid-1970s
used paintings to oppose stereotyped figures to Mexican women and Mexican American
women in religion. Yolanda Lopez and Ester Hernandez, two prominent images of
Chicana art movement, repainted the Virgin of Guadalupe differently in active
images to encourage Mexican women to break traditional limits in women’s roles
and expectations; Jackson explained:
In the first
piece, Lopez presents herself as the Virgin, running with her smiling face
erect, in contrast to the Virgin’s traditional solemn and downward-looking
pose. . . .Lopez depicts herself holding a snake tightly in one hand while
stepping on and crushing the angel, whom Lopez has described as a symbol of patriarchy.
(Jackson 2009, 117)
Similarly,
Betty LaDuke in the Feminine Studies,
she examined Latina art works of Yolanda Lopez which implied the breaking of
tradition and resistant boundary for interacting emotional feelings with social
conceptions. The author added that Yolanda Lopez’s art was “driven by love,
rage, and a sense of irony” (LaDuke 1994, 117). Similar to the activities of
Chicana artists of the Mujeres Muralistas, Yolanda Lopez found her art life
tended to street galleries. Lopez was impressed by traditional masculinity
hegemony that led her to intensive political activities through three large
paintings. First, she titled the Three
Generations of Mujeres for three images of daughter, mother and grandmother
because she argued, “Each woman addresses the fact she is being observed”
(LaDuke 1994, 117), for example, Lopez described her Grandmother Victoria F.
Franco in her Guadalupe image for she argued the subject of art must be in
lives not in myths. Second, due to her argument, Lopez developed new step
within her graduate project which was a series of A Don & Va Chicana? (Where Are You Going Chicana?) which
painted her as a runner with shorts and a T-shirt which intensively called her
a power and disciplined body for Chicanas’ psychological and physical endurance.
Lopez stated that endurance was a most important issue for survival against
traditional oppression. She also considered ancient goddess was not suppression
but transform; as a result, she used radiating light around the Guadalupe and
transformed her mother with perfect compassion. Obviously, she aimed new role
models as Chicanas desired. Finally, she had a goal that three portraits of her
grandmother, her mother and herself presented for working class women, old
women, young and middle women who required social attention.
"Our Lady" by Alma Lopez ©1999
This small (measuring only 14" x 17.5") photo-based digital print was
the focus of a huge debate in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2001. Since then,
America Needs Fatima (ANF) has stalked this image and harrassed the
museums and universities where it has been exhibited. Most recently, ANF
organized a protest at the Oakland Museum and incited conservative
Catholics in Cork County, Ireland to protest the exhibition of Our Lady at the University College Cork. quoted from : http://almalopez.net/ORindex.html
Chicana art works not only aimed to social and political
issues but also aimed to depict Latina American sexualities. According to
Jackson, Alma Lopez, a contemporary Chicana artist, mostly used digital technologies
to revise traditional Mexican and Mexican American images which showed the
endurance of Chicanas and queers. She was a talented and skilled painter as
well as an enthusiastic activist in Mexican American community. The Tattoo was her digital print exhibited in
1999 with the description of a woman having a large tattoo of the Virgin of Guadalupe
in a whole “set against the backdrop of a typical U.S.-Mexico border fence and
the Los Angeles metropolitan skyline” (Jackson 2009, 117). Furthermore, as a
Chicana artist she frequently painted her Virgin of Guadalupe everywhere as Luz
Calvo wrote in the Meridians: feminism,
race, transnationalism:
She is painted
on car windows, tattooed on shoulders or backs, emblazoned on neighborhood
walls, and silk-screened on t-shirts sold at local flea markets. Periodically,
her presence is manifested in miraculous apparitions: on a tree near
Watsonville, California; on a water tank, a car bumper, or a freshly made
tortilla.(FN1)She is sorrowful mother, a figure who embodies the suffering of
Chicano/a and Mexican populations in the context of colonization, racism, and
economic disenfranchisement. (Calvo 2004, 201)
While the Catholic
Church deployed the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe for the “regressive sexual
politics” (Calvo 2004, 201), Chicana feminists used the images to oppose and
protest against colonization, economic exploitation and even sexual regression.
As a Chicana lesbian artist, Lopez applied semiotics in digital technology to
oppose traditional meanings of the Virgin. She thought the First Amendment, the
right for freedom of speech, was for her to reveal her opinion in the public;
first for cultural identity and second for queer and feminist Chicana art. In her
Our Lady, she wanted to reform the
Virgin of Guadalupe including feminism and queer movement into Chicana artists’
movement. Being a feminist, she proclaimed the comments to the original image
of the Virgin; for example, Virgin’s hands posed in praying but her eyes
drooping down, Virgin’s long sleeved gown from neck to toe and stood upon a
crescent moon. Surprisingly, Our Lady
had very significant changes to the original version with “draws attention to
the brown female body by exposing…her legs, arms, and midriff bare”, and
importantly she changed the Virgin’s stance with the hands now on the hips and
“her gaze cast forward defiantly” (Calvo 2004, 204). However, like two earlier
Chicana feminist artists as Yolanda Lopez and Ester Hernandez, Lopez had to
encounter many protests and still controversy due to the issues of Our Lady. As
content, Calvo stated, “Lopez’s art poses a critique and challenge that is
about more than free speech or even equal rights” (Calvo 2004, 203). Furthermore,
the author explained that Lopez desired the brown skinned Guadalupe in her Our Lady since of the consequence of
racial hierarchies and colonial legacies. Lopez also emerged from her visual
arts as challenged interaction of sexuality, race, class and gender. Guisela Latorre
called Lopez’s images as “Chicana queer aesthetic” because Lopez’s images intended
to challenge public and encountered the rejection from traditional Chicano/a
organizations. However, Latorre explained:
Lopez’s work
centers on a feminist and queer re-thinking of traditional Mexican icons, many
of which are imbued with a deeply ingrained patriarchal discourse. The Virgin
of Guadalupe-a popular symbol of Mexican /Chicana/o spiritual and cultural
resistance from the seventeenth century to the present-has become the object of
feminist critique among Chicana artists since 1970s. (Latorre 2008, 132-133)
Yolanda López
Portrait of the Artist as the Virgin of Guadalupe
Date: 1978
Size: 32" X 24"
Medium: oil pastel on paper
Collection of the artist
Click here to see a poster of the Lopez's drawing
Lopez thought the Virgin of Guadalupe culturally depicted an
image of ideal woman with asexuality, passiveness and submissiveness as reasons
for Lopez to exhibit her Our Lady
additionally the Lupe & Sirena in
Love and the Encuentro (Calvo
2004, 203-213).
Higher education in Art was necessary for Chicana artists for development and
comprehension to aesthetic career and art skill. Although aesthetical education
was available earlier for Anglo women at the beginning of the twentieth century,
it was available for Chicanos and Chicanas during the middle decades (Ochoa
2003, 27). Relating art education of art, Ochoa recommended that Chicanas
artists should make efforts to obtain higher education at art colleges where
Chicanas could obtain art skills and meet together. Chicano/a art was
appreciated in the art world since it was distinguished from Western or
European art. Chicana artists as Mujeres Muralistas and Co-Madres Artistas and
numerous other Chicana American artists have confirmed their stances in the
aesthetic diversity of the United States.
Race, Class, Sexuality and Gender Patriarchy
in Chicana Art Works
In
the review for The Politics of Spiritual
and Aesthetic Altarities written by Laura Perez an Associate Professor in
Latino/a studies, Gloria Feman Orenstein described all Chicana artists studied
deeply their native traditions and formed in minds the blending identities of
“hybridization and reinterpretation” (Orenstein 2009, 120) in the United States
a country without traditional patriarchies. This was better opportunities for
them to depict their talents in art and reveal their desires in politics,
culture, and identity. Therefore, they eventually wanted to create a new
political spirit as a culture of “non-sexist, non-homophobic, non-racist,
non-classist, non-patriarchal” (Orenstein 2009, 120). Furthermore, in the Our Lady, the goddesses Lopez would be
reinterpreted, but female deities did not came from Western and European traditions.
As a Chicana artist lesbian, Lopez revealed her sexuality without a shame. She exhibited
the art works both in visuals and words thanks to technology and media
distributions until a day people recognized the voices of “those who are employed
in positions of servitude or the closeted…lives of homosexuals, lesbians,
transvestites, and other gender benders (Orenstein 2009, 122). Similarly, Calvo
wrote that Chicana lesbian artists claimed the Virgin of Guadalupe since they wanted to protest their traditional
Chicano/a culture. However, most of Chicana feminists argued that the Virgin
implied our mother who stood over all things or “racism, sexual violence,
economic injustice, and, even, homophobia” (Calvo 2004, 208).
Similarly, Ochoa wrote that several alliances called “women of color” would
come along with Chicana feminists, a term edited in the book This Bridge Called My Back by a couple
of lesbian feminists Anzaldua and Cherrie Moraga who were called “cross-cultural
feminist alliances” (Ochoa 2003, 21). Also, the members of Mujeres Muralistas and
Co-Madres Artistas were ready to ally with other women of color to enhance
Chicana artists movement. Hence, a collective might combined from other women of
color artists but still be called Chicana. Indeed, from alliance with other
women of color, Chicana artists would suggest for political rather than focus
on biological and cultural since all women of colors would prefer participating
with Chicana artists for common struggles in “ imagined communities” (Ochoa
2003, 22).
Conclusion
Mexican American
culture had a long history in American society before Anglo Protestant culture
came with the United States. However, the idea that Mexican Americans were
assimilated by Anglo Protestant culture was dominant. According to Jackson, the
Chicano movement emerged at the increase of Vietnam War during 1960s, and until
1969 Chicano activists began merging with Chicano movement to protest against
the Vietnam War. Therefore, numerous Chicano/a artists also emerged at these
movements. With huge efforts in
collectives, murals, and individual paintings, the Chicana artists groups and
individuals have claimed the identities of Latin American women within
Chicana/o Art Movement and communities. They also proved enormous ability,
talent, power, and even tenacity for numerous successes in education and
exhibition. Chicana paintings have depicted Chicano/a culture and implied a Chicana
feminist movement struggling against dominance of race, gender in traditional
culture and in mainstream diversity. In addition, Chicana lesbian artists
claimed their sexuality under the freedom of speech which is respected
constitutionally. These Chicanas will convert to Chicana feminists for
simultaneous struggles against racism, sexism and gender stereotypes like Ochoa
stated that they didn’t name themselves feminists, but their works obviously
positioned them like Chicanas who worked outside traditional system. Chicanas
should try more efforts to escape the three burdens of gender, color, and not
being westerners, first to surpass Chicano artists catching a higher position
in the mainstream art. Also, Chicana
artists should rely on higher education in the United States for understanding well
the Western artistry to have outstanding art works which would combine Western
art and their traditional art. Moreover, as Henkes recommended, Chicana/o
artists should not have to cling to cultural traditions in art because they
should blend for a universal enjoying. Eventually, they would obtain worldwide
exhibitions for their painting as a means to extend their feminist movement
universally. Individual art works belong to Yolanda Lopez, Alma Lopez, for
example, had distinctive exhibitions as new voices of Chicanas in modern time
as an effective feminist movement for Mexican women against traditional Mexican
culture in which Chicanas have endured long oppressions. Besides individual
paintings, the Chicanas’ murals, as Ochoa proclaimed, were also the spiritual
art works which contributed everywhere in public where numerous people would
pass by, but they might make more effectiveness for the Chicana Art Movement.
In brief, Chicana artists could create strategic successes in people’s hearts
through popular arts to support Chicana/o Art Movement to claim and confirm
their identities. However, Chicanas’ exhibitions and contributions to their
paintings still remained largely neglected by Chicano and American art centers
and institutions that required Chicanas and Mexican American women artists to
expand their art works into American media and international for greater
support from American feminists and social activists in the mainstream.
Words
Count: 5025
Bibliographies
Calvo, Luz. "Art Comes for the Archbishop: The
Semiotics of Contemporary Chicana
Feminism and the Work of Alma Lopez." Meridians
5, no. 1(2004): 201-224 OmniFile
FullText Mega (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost
(accessed April 11, 2013).
Ebsco. “Provides a Wealth of Resources for all core
subjects”. OmniFile Full Text Mega.
Full Text Mega (H.W.
Wilson), EBSCOhost (accessed May 13, 2013). Achieved from
http://www.ebscohost.com/public/omnifile-full-text-mega
Jackson, Carlos Francisco. Chicana and Chicano Art: Protest Arte/ Carlos Francisco
Jackson. Tucson: The
University of Arizona Press, 2009.
Laduke, Betty. 1994. "Yolanda
Lopez: Breaking Chicana stereotypes." Feminist Studies 20, no.
1: 117. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost
(accessed May 8, 2013).
Latorre, Guisela. "Icons of Love and Devotion:
Alma López's Art." Feminist Studies 34,
no. ½ (2008): 131-150. Academic Search
Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed May 8, 2013).
Ochoa, Maria. Creative Collective: Chicana Painters Working in Community.
Albuquerque: New Mexico
University Press, 2003.
Ochoa, Maria del Carmen. Department of Social Science. (Accessed
May 11, 2013).
Achieved from http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/socs/ochoa.htm
Orenstein, Gloria Feman. 2009.
"Review of Chicana Art." Femspec 10, no. 1: 120-122.
OmniFile Full Text Mega (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost (accessed May 13, 2013).
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This research was written and submitted by Phuc Dinh to Social Science Department of San Jose State University in May 2013.
==============================================================
MUJERES MURALISTAS
APPENDIXES
MUJERES MURALISTAS
Latinoamerica
Latinoamérica mural on Mission Street
midway between 25th and 26th, 1974.
Photo: Patricia Rodriguez
“The Mujeres Muralistas made its formal public appearance in
1974 with a large mural painted for the Mission Model Cities organization,
located at Mission and 25th Streets. Consuelo was approached by a friend who
worked at Mission Model Cities and asked if we could design and paint a mural
representing Latinos in the Mission District. The organization gave us $1,000
for the whole project. Consuelo, Graciela, Irene, and I got together and
decided to accept the invitation. The four of us met at our home in Balmy Alley
and brainstormed a design. Our house became the central headquarters of the
Mujeres Muralistas. . .”-
by Patricia Rodriguez, from her
essay "Mujeres Muralistas," in the anthology "Ten Years That
Shook the City: San Francisco 1968-78" (City Lights Foundation: 2011),
edited by Chris Carlsson.
"Our Lady" by Alma Lopez ©1999
Our Lady controversy
continues
“This small (measuring
only 14" x 17.5") photo-based digital print was the focus of a huge
debate in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2001. Since then, America Needs Fatima (ANF)
has stalked this image and harrassed the museums and universities where it has
been exhibited. Most recently, ANF organized a protest at the Oakland Museum
and incited conservative Catholics in Cork County, Ireland to protest the
exhibition of Our Lady at the University College Cork.”- Alma Lopez
Lopez, Alma. “Our Lady
controversy continues”. Almalopez.com.
Achiever from http://www.almalopez.net/ORindex.html#
I
CO-MADRES ARTISTAS
Warriors of the New Day - 1993, Oil on canvas, 5' X 4'
Irma Barbosa
Stories are the spirit threads passed on from generation to
generation. They are the means of learning. The stories passed on by our elders
were meant to guide and develop morals and values. My art takes you on a
pilgrimage to mythical places and tells you stories of innocence, beauty, and
pure passion. The universality of the earth Mother theme is utilized within
much of my work to communicate that every individual is responsible for his
words as he affects the earth and all people ... that each person is a walking
story .. and that we are all connected.
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