De La Rosa, Ana K (Week 10)

     Overall, this class has been amazing. I enjoyed learning about Chicana Women artists because they are never talked about. It is always the white artists or the men artists. There is so much lovely art that I would have not been exposed to if I did not take this class. My favorite artist was Xandra Ibarra. Having her as a guest lecture was amazing. I loved learning about her creative process. What really surprised me was that she did not do her art as an activist movement, she just did it for herself. All her art could be interpreted as activism because of the way it is done. The art that I took out of context was the Training for Exhaustion (2015). I gave it this deep meaning of relating the roach to minorities because roaches are considered dirty and unworthy, and minorities are also seen that way to high class straight white people.

    I really liked how her mother supports her art but doesn’t ask about it because she thinks her art is out of her comfort zone. This is amazing because everyone has their own different views on what is acceptable and what is not. But that should not get in the way of creating art that is meaningful to us. Ibarra also does not label her art regarding race because her art is her own and although she is proud of her roots, she also wants to be her own person, no labels and I really appreciate that because there are people that want to express themselves as their own with no labels.

    Professor Lopez, thank you so much for the exposure of so many great artists. I loved the new information that I learned and the project to showcase an underrated artist was very important to me because art should always be shared.

De La Rosa, Ana K (Week 9 - Irene Perez)

     It was hard to choose one artist since there were so many amazing presentations. Personally, I love murals and the presentation by Hannah Cornejo about Irene Perez was my favorite. The mural that left me in awe is the mural on the Women’s Center wall. The two walls are covered with beautiful bright artwork on one side Rigoberta Menchu takes up the main side of the mural. On the corners, profiles of women in different parts of the world. Throughout the mural there are women activists and just women doing everyday things that are enjoyable like dancing and celebrating. Another part that is beautiful is a pregnant goddess that represents the generation of women that are yet to come and make their print on the world.

    It seems like there are plenty of beautiful art in San Francisco, the Women's Center is located in San Francisco Mission District. It is beautiful to see women’s work be seen and celebrated because women do not get recognition for the beautiful activist art. These murals that depict everyday women are an inspiration for women all around the world to expand the communication among women to hope for a better tomorrow. Maestra Peace Murals created a book to showcase the art, power and beauty of the murals this way if for any reason the murals were no longer in site, they would have their artwork preserved.

    It is amazing that Irene Perez has had her prints and paintings exhibited not just on a national level but in an international level. The Mujeres Muralistas’ is a wonderful movement of women muralists from the U.S. and Mexico and hopefully it expands internationally to areas where Mexican Americans reside. We are constantly bombarded with art from artist around the world that showcase their culture it is only right to show case the Mexican/Chicana culture to the world.

De La Rosa, Ana K (Week 8 - Ruby Chacon)

 

    I enjoyed everyone’s presentation. It is really awesome that they were able to find artists that are creating amazing art that are Chicana women. The presentation that stood out to me a little bit more was Ruby Chacon presented by Lilibeth Chavez. The murals that she paints are full of color, expression and story.

    The background that she provided about Chacon made me feel as if I personally knew her. Through her art Chacon honors her family and her community. At first when you see Chacon’s mural you would have never guessed that they were located in Salt Lake City Utah. Since we see these kinds of art in California and Texas, for me it was nice to hear that these are in Utah. It is important to spread Chicano culture all over the United States because this was once Mexican territory. At a young age Chacon was taught to hide her Mexican culture. She later realized that she did not have to hide it, she had to embrace it and educate others. 

    The mural that I personally enjoyed was Cihuacoatl and Golden Rule Outdoor Murals. My favorite part was the woman in red in the silhouette of the Virgen de Guadalupe. She stands out because of the color red and it shows that women are important. The name Cihuacoatl is the Mayan Earth Goddess, she guards Latino musicians, farm workers and children. It was interesting to learn that Ruby’s role model is Cesar Chavez and man fighting for rights of farmer workers. Being a farm worker is hard work, not only because of the weather conditions but also because of the way the body is in positions that over time can cause back problems. I really liked the colors that were used in this mural.

    One thing that still puzzles me is that there are people that are ashamed of their Chicano culture and I don’t understand how  that is possible.

De La Rosa, Ana K (Week 7)

    In the reading, “Chicanx Graphics in the Digital Age” by Claudia E. Zapata, Zapata talks about the digital revolution that Chicanx artists had to highlight and transform as it was a new medium. This digital revolution created a new medium to express and create art. There are some art forms that require harmful toxins by the paint or tools that are used, with digital art all is needed is a program. Any art done digitally can be transferred faster from location to location and can reach a bigger audience. Technology is very revolutionary in today's age. People can feel empowered when their art is shared thousands of times through different platforms.

    There is no limitation on where your art could go. It can now reach people in other countries, and they can learn and see the struggles, injustices, and resistance that the Chicanx culture has to endure. This new medium is not an addition to existing art forms, but it is a new art form. It does not mean that it is better because each artform has its merits, but it is definitely something that anyone can dip their toes in. By having a digital platform its gives artists the liberty of promoting their work without censorship, they can put it on their social platforms and their followers then feature their work on their social platforms and a network form of people with similar interest.

    Whenever there are injustices, people create their art as a response to that and then it helps inform and unite people that have had that experience. Digital art was huge during the Black Lives Matter movement where people took their art to show the injustices of police and Black people. This also created a battle between people stating that All Lives Matter, showing that people are selfish and do not think of the problem at hand.

De La Rosa, Ana K (Week 6 - Xandra Ibarra)

     Xandra Ibarra’s art is very bold which is something that I enjoy because I love when people make art that makes others think and some of her artwork is very out there for the comfort of conservative people. What event made her think I need to show this to the world?

    My favorite performance is Training for Exhaustion (For The Unintelligible) (2015). As a society we have been taught that cockroaches are very nasty dirty bugs that need to be exterminated. In this performance there are 17 people including Ibarra and they are running as if they were cockroaches. In this run people put on visors that are used as “cucaracha lenses” and are listening to music that states facts about cockroaches. This shows the strength that roaches have when they are united. They multiply, they are fast, and they are hard to kill. This performance is a training exercise in which people train to be able to withstand anything that whiteness must throw our way. Being brown means that you have to work harder than your white folk because your skin-color is somehow degrading.

    Being brown is being the minority that has to prove they are worthy of being seen. Everything is harder if you are not a wealthy white man. In this 21 century we are still fighting for equality. Equality of women, equality to trans people, equality of LGBT people and equality of just being human. We are an infestation to the white America. An America that stole, killed and raped its way to power and called it a conquest because they were going to show us the way that we were supposed to live. This performance shows that as cockroaches, minorities are here to stay and invade.

De La Rosa, Ana K (Wiki Draft)

Nancy Pili Hernandez is a social justice muralist, activist, and visual artist known for participating in the hanging of a banner with the word “RESIST” near the White House.

Biography

Nancy was born on February 8, 1980. in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her father is Mexican/ Chicano. Her mother was born in Ireland. She attended City College of San Francisco where she received her Associate of Arts (AA). She also attended San Francisco State University where she received a Raza Studies minor in Art Education.

In high school she was part of social justice movements that were organized around chicano studies and was part of walkouts like proposition 187 and proposition 209. She saw the power that people have in different forms. Due to that experience she has been able to organize activism not only in public protesting but also the advocacy and the lobbying and direct action civil disobedient formats.

Has printed over 5000 bandanas for war actions, anti eviction protests and environmental issues. 

First form of art was a banner that was used on a walk out in 1994 - 1995 based on proposition 187. 

Nancy is part of Trust Your Struggle. An organization that has a collection of cultural workers, educators and visual artists that are dedicated to social justice.

Art  

• January 25, 2017. A 70 x 30 foot banner with the word “RESIST” was hung on a construction crane near the White house.

• Nancy was awarded an award for the resist banner. She accepted her reward in the place where she was arrested.

• My Homies Are My Heroes: was an art exhibit in which 40 local arts create art based on the different struggles that they have been through such as immigration rights, police accountability, affordable housing, etc.

• Indian Land 2010 - screenprint on paper.

 

References

1. “Bay Area Greenpeace Activists Charged with Unfurling 'Resist' Banner near White House.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 27 Jan. 2017, https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-greenpeace-resist-crane-white-house-20170127-story.html. 

2. ^ “#Myhomiesaremyheroes: For the People.” Mission Cultural Center For Latino Arts (MCCLA), https://missionculturalcenter.org/event/my-homies-are-my-heroes/. 

3. ^ Jesus Barraza, Dignidad Rebelde, Nancypili Hernandez, Indian Land, 2010, screenprint on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Samuel and Blanche Koffler Acquisition Fund, 2020.39.7, © 2010, Nancy Hernandez and Jesus Barraza

 

Further reading

• Nancy Pili: Our homegirl in the sky

• Taking Direct Action with Nancy Pili Hernandez

• Using Arts to Choose Democracy & Create Change with Nancy Pili Hernandez & David Solnit.

 

External links

• http://eltecolote.org/content/en/nancy-pili-our-homegirl-in-the-sky/

• https://sanfranciscoinflux.podbean.com/e/taking-direct-action-with-nancy-pili-hernandez/#

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP0cZerFL9g

• https://www.trustyourstruggle.org/

• https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/chicano-graphics/online/indian-land

De La Rosa, Ana K (Week 5)

 Curandera is the image by Carmen Lomas Garza that I have a personal connection to. When I was 5 years old, I was playing in the construction zone of my grandparents’ house. While playing I fell in the ‘cal’ mixture (chalk mixture for cement), and it got in my eyes. I ran to my mother, and she cleaned me up but noticed that my eyes kept getting smaller like I was falling asleep. She rushed me to a ‘curandera’, and she cleaned my eyes. After coming back home my grandmother said that I had a bad vibe and they did a deep cleansing with candles, an egg, copal smoke, and herbs. Every time anything bad happened she would do a deep cleanse to ensure that we would scare the bad spirits away. I always enjoyed them because it felt like a protection from my grandmother. When I came to the U.S. my grandmother stayed behind and, in the neighborhood, I was growing up ‘curanderas’ were a thing of the past. Every time we got sick my mother would look for a ‘curandera’ and every time my mom asked around, she would get weird looks. Later, my mother found out that many people did practice it but were afraid of people finding out because they were often reported by schools since any sick child was supposed to seek help from a professional doctor. Every healing process is different based on where the healer is from. Many healers have different methods depending on what needs to be healed. I have not been to a ‘curandera’ since I was maybe 10 years old. Once my mother found one the lady passed away and my mother did not want to go through the trouble of looking for one. She believed that it was a sign to leave those practices behind. 

Figure 17. Carmen Lomas Garza, Curandera, 1974. Etching. 48 ¼ x 56 ½ inches. Artist’s collections. (pg. 27).

De La Rosa, Ana K (Week 4)

    According to Tomas Ybarra-Frausto, “rasquachismo is neither an idea nor a style but more of an attitude or taste” (pg. 83). This means that although people try to pinpoint things that are considered ‘rasquachismo’ it means different things to different people indifferent class ranks. Higher class ranks see rasquachismo as not aesthetically pleasing because they have the means to purchase everything intended for its purpose. This can have an impact on artists that do not have the means to create art in the conventional way because they do not have the tools, but they create art with what they have available, and the use of their imagination is remarkable because when one sees a useless thing and artist sees it as an opportunity to express their imagination.

    Necessity makes people creative and there is nothing better than reusing things in different ways in which they are not intended to. Personally, I knew people that were embarrassed about how things looked because they were recycled or because they had hand me downs from older siblings. As they grew up, they wanted to stay away from those ideas because they were embarrassed for how they lived.

    A few personal examples of rasquachismo are adding water to dish soaps, shampoo, hair conditioner, and cutting the toothpaste tube to ensure that one used all the product provided in the bottle/tube. This helped to elongate the time in which one had to go buy a new product. When the recycling movement became a big advertised idea on YouTube many Mexican Americans started making memes about those ideas because their families had been doing it for years before it was “cool”. Recycling of containers to store food is something that one can see in many households, I know my mother’s fridge was filled with containers and it was a mission to find the food one was looking for.
 

De La Rosa, Ana K (Abstract for Nancy Pili Hernandez)

 Source 1:

Jones, Kevin L., Musiker, Cy. “Local Artist Arrested after Helping Hang 'Resist' Banner near White House.” KQED, 26 Jan. 2017, https://www.kqed.org/arts/12681644/local-artist-part-of-team-behind-resist-banner-hung-near-white-house. 

In the article “Local Artist Arrested after Helping Hang 'Resist' Banner near White House '' the authors Jones and Musiker talked about how Nancy Pili Hernandez faced multiple charges for aiding in the hanging of a banner that had the word “RESIST”. They talk about why she assisted in this form of defiance. Nancy wanted to be part of this protest to show that there are people united to “RESIST” against government rules that are affecting the people.

Source 2:

“Using Arts to Choose Democracy & Create Change with Nancy Pili Hernandez & David Solnit.” YouTube, 23 Oct. 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP0cZerFL9g

This zoom meeting was a workshop that was facilitated by Nancy Pili Hernandez and David Solnit talked about the reason why they choose art to create movements that can make change in many different aspects. Art is a way to create change in situations in which art speaks louder than words. They also talked about how it is important to be part of these movements because they try to create change for everyone affected by certain situations.

Source 3:

Baron, Carlos. “Nancy Pili: Our Homegirl in the Sky.” El Tecolote, 9 Feb. 2017, http://eltecolote.org/content/en/nancy-pili-our-homegirl-in-the-sky/. 

In this article “Nancy Pili: Our Homegirl in the Sky” Boron sits down with Nancy to talk about the big news that she had been part of hanging the “RESIST” banner near the white house. They talked about why she did it and how she felt moments leading up to the hanging of the banner. They also talked about what she wanted to represent and if she had any fears that could contribute to her rebellion. 

De La Rosa, Ana K (Week 3)

I was born in Mexico and in the 7 years I was there (before moving to the U.S.) my family was Catholic. We would attend church every Sunday. We also had an altar that would showcase ‘la Virgen de Guadalupe’. Every adult in my family would carry an image of ‘la Virgen de Guadalupe’ and on the back of that image there was a prayer that focused on ‘la Virgen de Guadalupe’. Once we came to the U.S. the first year, we all continued to attend a Catholic church but little by little we stayed away and only attended church as part of punishment. Up to that point I enjoyed going and learning the stories that my grandmother would tell me. After church turned into a punishment, I really hated seeing anything related to church. I saw ‘la Virgen de Guadalupe’ as a punishment and every time someone talked about her, I would get angry.

The thing I enjoyed about ‘la Virgen de Guadalupe’ was not what she symbolized but I loved how my family was always together. In every meal we would pray to her. You would think that we would pray for Jesus but no it was always to ‘la Virgen de Guadalupe’. December 12 was my favorite day because everyone around the block would gather to worship and celebrate her. Delicious food and amazing company. 

In my ‘quinceanera’ I received a gold necklace of ‘la Virgen de Guadalupe’. I kept it in the box and never wore it. In my mind it was a way to show that I did not worship her. I do believe in a higher power, but I don’t think I will ever worship her again. She represents a time in my life that was very dark and even though I prayed and prayed it continued to get worse and worse.

Hernandez, Nancypill

 Alexander, Sofia

Arevalo Gosen, Ana Maria

De La Rosa, Ana K

 

Hello everyone.

My name is Ana Karen De La Rosa, My pronouns are she/hers/hers. I am a fourth-year majoring in Sociology. I was born in Tlalnepantla de Baz, Mexico. I migrated to the U.S when I was 7 years old. As an immigrant (just got my citizenship) and a first-generation college student I have a strong interest in learning about the culture of Mexico since I left when I was very young. While visiting states in Mexico I was intrigued with all their artwork. I recently visited Chichen-Itza in Yucatan, Mexico and seeing the artwork, the sculptures and leaning about the history of the Mayan people was very interesting. Personally, I am not a very creative person, meaning I can't create art, but I do really appreciate the art of others.

Growing up in the U.S was very hard because I did not speak the language and because my classmates saw me as the new girl from Mexico. I felt out of place because according to my cousins I was not Mexican enough and according to my peers I was not American enough. This was the reason why I wanted to learn more about my roots although I did not live there. There is no reason to fit into one culture when you can learn from them all.

The reason why I decided to study sociology is because I want to focus on clinical social work. Society is not always kind to others and my main concern is children that have not been exposed to a healthy life mentally. Another interest of mine is to expose the idea of what a family is. While taking Sociology 174 - Sociology of Family I learned that there are many factors in which a family can help or hurt the people considered family. Many cultures have the idea that blood family is always a priority regardless of the harm they might have on one.

Overall, I am very excited to learn and see what this class has to offer.