Alicia Gaspar de alba and the CARA Exhibit

In “Out of the House, the Halo, and the Whore’s Mask: The Mirror of Malinchismo”, an essay by Alicia Gaspar de Alba, the author delves into many topics, but what most caught my attention was her focus on feminism and the CARA Exhibit. The CARA exhibition was a traveling exhibition which primarily attempted to showcase the first 20 years of the Chicano art movement, in an effort to end discrimination, racism, and poverty. I was fascinated at the lack of equality that existed, despite what the CARA exhibit claimed it stood for, as Gaspar de Alba points out. The underrepresentation of women was omnipresent, ranging from the manner in which Chicanas were portrayed in the art to the lack of Chicana artists. One example Gaspar de Alba notes is the portion of the exhibit dedicated to artists expressing the impact of Frida Kahlo. While it is a step forward to highlight the career of a female artist, it was counteractive that all of the artists who's opinions were valued enough to be featured in the exhibit, were Chicano. To suppress the Chicana voice from a matter such as feminism is not feminist at all. I think that the exhibit contradicted itself in this example and many others, as it claimed to be activism for equality. Gaspar de Alba generally claims that the CARA exhibition had a lack of focus on gender and sexuality, two very important subjects to pay attention to in the fight for equality. 

During her in-class presentation, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, brought up interesting concepts and historical events in addition to her study of the CARA exhibition. More specifically, I was surprised when she began describing feminism in the 1970s. 1970 feminism was essentially white feminism, as the group of people who claimed themselves to be feminists were dominantly white, heterosexual females. They pursued blatant discrimination as they avoided, or mores rejected, being associated with lesbians, as they did not want the general public to view all of them as lesbians. The prejudice exhibited by the only group of people who set a reputation for feminists in the 1970s exemplifies how deep-rooted inequality is. Even women, who were supposedly fighting for equality, were practicing discrimination against other women. I was stunned as Gaspar de Alba introduced this and many other topics to our class in her presentation.