The painting, La Feria en Reynosa, by Carmen Lomas Garza depicts a memory of Lomas Garza’s early childhood, in the border town of Reynosa, Texas. As depicted in the scene, there are three stands: a doll and t-shirt stand, a taco stand, and a handcrafted pottery stand as well. The general image looks quite busy, with children and adults filling up the empty space, and more adults sitting down at tables drinking and chatting. Besides the general public who are enjoying the fair, there is a violinist performing for the audience, and a woman selling bread from the basket on her head. Considering the background, it looks desert dry, causing the scene to look like the heat is very much in effect during this fair.
This particular image strikes me as reminiscent as well, since I used to attend my church’s small fairs in Tijuana. There would be biannual fairs: one for Easter, and one prior to the holidays, but the community began to die out, causing for only the Easter fair to take place. It also reminded me of the sobre ruedas, which is a street vending event that tends to take place on one day of the week, depending on the community. The sobre ruedas in our community was always on friday, stretching a mile long, with many different types of vendors: toys, handcrafted work, meats and pastries, along with performers walking around the street, and other single person walkers selling their own goods, just like the bread basket woman.
This painting showcases the way the many Latine and Chicanx communities support and connect with each other, and is a crucial aspect to our culture. For example, the Easter fair I would attend for church was not only a community to engage people with Easter festivities, but it was also a form of fundraising. The sobre ruedas was similar, but specifically supported individual, small vendors in the community.
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