My name is Michell Chavez-Valdivia. My preferred pronoun is she/her. I am a fourth year Chicana/o Studies major. I am pursuing this career because I want to be an immigration lawyer so that I can help students who were brought to the U.S at a very young age and are now being punished for it. These students have a lot of potential and not enough resources to give them the tools to be successful, I want to be able to give them that opportunity where they legal status will not intervene in their success. Being a first generation college student I had a lot of barriers put in my way due to low income, legal status, and language barriers that if I didn’t have a mentor who guided me I know I would not be graduating from UCLA this year. Therefore, I want to be a mentor for those students that have been neglected the resources due to their citizenship status.
I am very interested in this class because I believe art is a way of expression, in addition Chicana Art like stated in the articles are so under appreciated. One of my favorite articles is, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?”, by Linda Nochlin because it emphasizes the idea that yes women are great artist but it is simply because they are women that they can never be great. How is it possible to be in the 21st century and still not be equal as women? These women produce amazing great but they will never be remembered in history or be recognized as amazing artist because the only way to make that happen is if you are a male.
In addition, it’s not only if you are a women where you are seen as less, but if you are a Chicana artist then you have two negatives. Venegas shows this concept in her article by demonstrating that you are now a minority by being a Chicana and also a minority by being a women. In addition, she explained how being a Chicana meant leaving some Mexican values and American values behind so that they can build their own values in order to be successful in this country. I found this interesting because it just comes to show how all the barriers that Chicana women have and what we need to do in order to change these social structures stored upon us as minorities.
“Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” by Linda Nochlin was one of my favorite articles too. In class I shared how I felt right off how the question is loaded with negative connotations about women artists. Then, once any feminists or women engaged in trying to answer the question, they were inadvertently buying into the fallacy. But at least in thinking about the question itself it exposed much to contemplate about the historical state of challenges for women and Chicana artists.
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