Chicana Printmakers

Holly Barnet-Sanchez goes into depth detail with explaining the involvement, Chicana printmakers had through the Chicano/a civil rights movement, while wanting to also receive equal respect for their artistic skills, the same respect males in that field were granted. The calendars and photograph prints, spoke of the suffrages and disadvantages Chicana women faced while living in a patriarchal society. As explained in this article, Chicana printmakers while being socially active were also aiming to eliminate the division of power between males and females. Chicana printmakers wanted to prove that they were capable to represent their Latino community, while also educating them in how thriving the Latino community can be if males and females practiced egalitarianism in their relationships. Eventually that would unite them and make them stronger to resist oppression from the dominant group. I noticed the images represented Latina women with different types of upbringings, nevertheless dealing with the same struggle of being underrepresented. The images illustrated plenty of emotions, by the facial expression many of the women in the images had. Therefore, one can imagine how hard it was for these Chicana printmakers to express their talents at the time.

One of the images that captivated me was from Yreina Cervántez, called El pueblo chicano con el pueblo centroamericano. In this image she manages to include political activist such as El Che, who was from an Argentinian descent. It was good to see that through Latino struggles, all Latinos from different countries can manage to come together and fight for a cause that will help the whole Latino community, and that at the end of the day, we are Latinos and we should not be divided into groups of Mexican and Centro Americans, because though one might be from a different country, there are struggles that all Latinos encounter.