Chicana Printmakers....Chicana Agency

Holly Barnet-Sanchez writes “Where Are the Chicana Printmakers?” that examines the political insight and identity proclamations of Chicana printmakers from 1976 -1990.  She explores the complexity of Chicana printmaking styles and themes that are not identical but that does hold a similar level of agency and strive for coalition among Chicano/a communities.  These commonality can be understood as a cultural hybridity that is never the same but in turn is in the remix that result from generations of land conquest that result in culture clashing.  From such culture collision a mestizo consciousness is produced, which is the prominent theme discussed by Barnet-Sanchez when exploring Chicana printmaking.  For example, Yreina Cervantez’ screen-print El Pueblo Chicano con El Pueblo Centroamericano (The Chicano Village with the Central American Village) 1986 that represents pre-Columbian figures, Central American leaders like Sandino, Che Guevara and Rigoberta Menchu.  Combined with the images of these leaders, contemporary Chicano/a symbols like the La Virgen and a clinched fist that are introduced to represent solidarity with the experience of being subjects of colonization.  All of the figures in this piece control and express different levels of agency that the artist has chosen to also own.  Such level of cultural hybridity and statement of identity aesthetics are prevalent throughout the Chicana printmakers discussed by Barnet-Sanchez.