Milk the Pass, by Barbara Carrasco Week 7

The piece that stood out the most for me was Barbara Carrasco’s painting titled, Milk the Pass. In this painting we see a woman who is constrained in a bottle filled with milk. It is a rather witty scene as the background story talks of the painter’s sensitivity to eating a jalapeño after being coaxed by her grandfather to prove that she is truly a Mexican.  As the painting reveals, Carrasco was not very convincing as she ends up drinking large amounts of milk to alleviate the burning sensation that the jalapeño caused in the artist’s throat.

            What this painting really conjured in me is the power that skin color has on the communities of color. The painter who is light skin is being given a hard time for lacking the physical characteristics of being Mexican, yet the scene shows a desperate woman going to lengths at burning her mouth to prove that she belongs. I personally believe that this type of behavior from family members or community leads to alienating lighter skinned members of the family. Alienation by setting them apart from others keeping them from feeling that they belong. Treating them as outsiders, and sometimes even encouraging them to pass as white. I personally believe that physical characteristics are not what determine who we are or what we should identify with. It is our connections and experiences with the family, our pasts and community that help us with determining our identity; it is with the help of our traditions and values that help us identity within society and not solely our physical characteristics. To encourage light skinned members of society to pass as white is to take away from them their culture, a Mexican identity and even their language. What this painting revealed to me is a woman who is painfully reasserting her Mexican identity, which in my opinion should not be necessary, and should be accepted for what she feels comfortable with.