Week 5: Ofelia Esparza

Hearing Ofelia Esparza speak about her story, her cultural upbringing, and her work last week made me really admire her spirituality, her way of seeing the world, and her connections to the past. The way she described the earth, her neighborhood, her ancestors showed her deep connection spiritual transcendence and understanding of everything that made her life hers. In particular, when she was talking about knowing her grandmother but never really actually knowing her made me think of my own grandmother and my great grandfather. Immigrating from Colombia, my grandmother and father had to leave everyone behind to move to the US and being undocumented for the first half of their lives here, they couldn’t go back and visit my great grandfather even at the time of his passing so they only had memories and photos to maintain that connection. They have since passed those memories and stories along to me to the point where I think about him as though I’ve visited him and worry about what he would think even though I’ve only ever seen a few photos of him. 

Additionally, the carrying on of old tradition and honoring ancestors reminds me a lot of Carmen Lomas Garza’s work. Not only had Garza created altars but she also used familial scenes and cultural traditions as the subjects of her work so create more representation, understanding, and respect. I particularly liked her use of close ups to convey the deeper often more emotional or spiritual essence of whatever she depicted. I truly admire these women and their deep connections to their ancestors and embodiment of spirituality. 

Coming from a mixed ethinic background where my parents are from two completely different types of worlds, I have long struggled in understanding my own cultural identity and how to embody and honor both parts of me because they were equally as important in my upbringing. But, hearing these women talk and reading a lot about how Chicanas navigate their own world of intersectionality has helped me understand and navigate my own cultural world a little better.