Essay Questions for Professor Gaspar de Alba

1. Why did the CARA exhibit fail to highlight a Las Mujeres Muralistas, a very important group that challenged many sexist and stereotypical notions within the Chicano Art movement and where did those sexist notions and stereotypes come from?

I personally like to paint on walls or any large like canvas I can find. This question arises from my very strong interest in murals and street art, and it bothered me that the exhibit would fail to highlight Las Mujeres Muralistas. Patricia Rodriguez is one of the members of Las Mujeres Muralistas, and she is also the artist I have chosen to present on. Las Mujeres Muralistas, as I read in the essay broke notions and stereotypes that women were not meant to create murals because it was not meant for them physically and politically, as well as the belief that they were not meant to climb or create scaffolds and many more sexist notions. Reading the essay, I figured and it was made obvious that the better question is "What does this say about the sexual politics in the Chicano art movement?" I believe that this question answers my question, there is a clear patriarchal environment in the Chicano art movement, and sexual politics influences very much what works of art are highlighted and which are not, which was illustrated in the CARA exhibit. The sexist and stereotypical notions that women can't do murals I believe arises from ideas like machismo and gender roles.

 2. Where does this strong concept of "homeland", that inform the content and theme of the art derive from Aztlán aesthetics, why is there is strong sense of finding and obtaining cultural reclamation?

From reading the essay I feel that Aztlán aesthetics' strong concept of homeland, comes from the lost sense of origin here in the United States and back in Mexico. The place of origin is in question and it is not Mexico, because many Chicano and Chicanas have realized that in Mexico they are looked at as "sellouts" to their Mexican Culture and in the United States they are viewed as "outsiders." This question interests me because I question what is my true homeland or place of origin. However, cultural reclamation is not as important to me, because I feel that it won't represent who I really am or how I truly want to identify myself.