Week 8 Blog Post

For this weeks blog i wanted to write about Migration is Beautiful but since it's been covered a couple times I'm choosing Pussy Power by Favianna Rodriguez, which no one has talked about. This image has a message that is in your face holding nothing back, it is a message of power through sexuality and the double standard of being called a slut as a woman but not as a man. I think this is exactly why no one has talked about it, because this oppressive double standard is so ingrained in our culture, especially as people of color. This image however, is about taking back the word slut and using it as an identifier of power and fighting back against the male oppressors. It is not necessarily a message against men however, it clearly states a war on women is a war on everyone. This message to me points out that there should be solidarity between men and women as equals with neither one oppressing the other. The anger in the message just stems from the historic and persistent inequality. I think it is a very important message and it is very blunt, which is very much my style of being brutally honest.

Sketch Book Stencil

For my sketch book stencil I chose the ouroboros symbol from the anime Full Metal Alchemist. Homunculus literally means a small human or humanoid creature; in the series the homunculus are created and are representations of the seven deadly sins. They were created as the failed attempts to bring back loved ones from the grave. The homunculus all are marked with the same red symbol of the dragon eating its own tail (ouroboros). This is supposed to represent the cycle of life and death and how death paves the way for life. Another key theme of the series is that of equivalent exchange "Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost." I think the homunculus symbol also perfectly captures this, even the balanced contrasting triangles in the center depict this meaning. I think this is meaningful to me because it helps me look for a silver lining when times are difficult, like that saying it's always darkest before the dawn. This symbol helps me hold on to hope. It is also meaningful to me in a different way, as it was the first anime I fully watched and it opened the door to a new world for me to escape to.

Laura Alvarez

It was a real privilege having the multitalented multimedia artist Laura Alvarez in class. Hearing about how her family and environment influenced her art and brought about the Double Agent Sirvienta (DAS) was amazing. This piece by Laura, which is part of the DAS series is the one that stood out to me the most. It demonstrates the multiple roles that women can take and also changes the way we view the "maid." Laura said in class, "technology is power" and here we see the double agent sirvienta using technology in two ways: the tiara looking thing on her head which is being used for communication and the robot bird which could be used as a drone or explosive, either way it holds great power. I feel that the use of a communication technology in this piece reflects being heard or making the unnoticed noticeable. The expression on the double agent sirvienta is powerful and confident and is a contrast to the invisibility with which maids are often seen. Overall i feel this piece is about empowering women, making them noticed, and showing that they should not be taken at face value because they can be so much more than what you see. I feel like this message lines up pretty well with Yolanda's feminist works in that they are about empowerment and the multiple roles that women can take. I especially see the similarity to Yolanda's Eclipse where you see the image of the nursing mother and it splits off into the runner and the essence of the nursing mother, where there are multiple roles and symbols of power.

Week 3 Blog

In Shifra Goldman's essay The Iconography of Self Determination it talks about the various struggles Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, and Chicanos have had to endure throughout history. It talks about how racism is institutionalized and was done for the benefit of Anglo-Saxon settlers. Goldman goes on to explain that these discriminations were done on the basis of race, ethnicity, and class. The attack on race was not isolated to just the Indian part of being Mexican but also the Spanish Mestizo bloodline as one American school teacher put it, "the inferiority of Mexicans is biological and class." Anglo colonialism also had a severe impact on ethnicity. Frantz Fanon put it best when he poke of colonialism, "is not satisfied merely with holding a people in it's grip...By a kind of perverted logic, it turns to the past of oppressed people and distorts, disfigures, and destroys it." As far as class goes Goldman explains that the lower "working" class was formed by Anglos stripping land from the Mexicans and that they have basically stayed in the working class since.  The most interesting part of the essay to me was about the Zoot Suit riots, i was not really familiar with this event and it astonished me that it was said that "...all he knows and feels is the desire to use a knife...to kill, or at least let blood" and that "Americanism" was used as an excuse by servicemen to beat zoot-suiters. It is yet another reminder of the very ugly history of the United States that tends to be swept under the rug.

The Yolanda image that i feel best represents self determination is Nuestra Madre. I think that showing aspects of Tonantzin and Coatlicue within the image of the Virgen de Guadalupe draws back on the roots of who we are as a people and showcases our ethnicity. The aspects of these godesses also show strength and virtue and empower us as a people, showing that we are not the lower class and have more to offer than what the Anglos put out to believe. In this image Yolanda draws on the beauty of race, ethnicity, class, and feminism.

Questions for Readings: Out of the House and There's no Place Like Home

After reading the essay "Out of the house, the Halo, and the Whore's Mask I had several questions. My biggest issue was previously covered on the blog, as to why there are such limited roles that women were assigned to. There is mention of the virgin, the mother, and the revolutionary however, there is also mention of an even smaller grouping of Adelitas and Malinches.  There is an infinite number of roles that a woman can take on and for this reason I like the exhibit called "Las Tres Marias." It allows the viewer to look at themselves right in the middle of two women being depicted in these patriarchal roles and lets you wonder where you fit in. My question to Alicia Gaspar de Alba is, if you were standing in front of "Las Tres Marias" exhibit what role or or more accurately roles would you see when looking into that mirror and how would those roles line up to the traditional roles created for women, if at all?

In the essay "There's No Place Like Aztlan: Embodied Aesthetics in Chicana Art I found a sense of familiarity. When I was young I remember going to Mexico to visit my family sometimes for extended stays and even though I was of Mexican descent I did not really fit in, while back home they were trying to put me into ESL classes just because my parents spoke Spanish primarily so I didn't really feel like i belonged here nor there. However, I wasn't that connected to the culture growing up I had never heard of Aztlan before and that sense of belonging that it represents, the non-existing "homeland." I know it has also been mentioned before in the blog that this Aztlan was primarily a place for chicanos and not chicanas, which seems nonsensical to me that if your feeling alienated and create this utopia to help you get through the strife why would you alienate your female counterparts too. So my question is why do you think this was done, was it simply because the long ingrained patriarchal roots? If there is two groups going through a struggle wouldn't unity seem like a better option? As a woman who has probably gone through some kind of sense of non-belonging is there an Aztlan for you? What is your utopia and is so different that others wouldn't be able to unite under this idea along you instead of alienating one another? Not saying that you alienate people just trying to understand why the Chicano men would alienate their women.

Barajas, Elias

Hi, my name is Elias Barajas, but i just go by Eli. I am a Navy veteran, i was an Airborne Mine Countermeasures Aircrewman and Aviation Machinist's Mate. I transferred to UCLA from Cerritos College, which i attended for three years because i kept changing my major. I am currently a Senior in the Psychology major. I am a father of two, my son Eliseo who is about to turn 5 next month and my daughter Audrey who is 18 months old. I commute everyday from Alhambra so i spend about three hours on the road round trip, got to love that L.A. traffic.

I'm really into comics and anime art and i was recently exposed to Chicano/a art through a Day of the Dead course i took here. This stemmed my interest in Chicano/a art, thus i enrolled in this course to learn more.

Growing up in a Catholic family i know of "La Virgen de Guadalupe." Although i did get baptized and did my first communion i refused to do my confirmation because Catholicism simply did not align with my views. However, i still remember my grandmother lighting candles and praying to "La Virgencita" to keep us safe, so i am familiar with what she stands for. We also covered her in my Day of the Dead course talking about how she was a symbol for resistance and unity during "La Revolucion." Since i grew up with a religious family who celebrated all the associated holidays i would call myself culturally Catholic but not religiously Catholic.

Adriana Yadira Gallego

I'm choosing Adriana Yadira Gallego. I never heard of her before looking her art up, however i hope to learn a lot through this project. Her intricate and beautiful art style just drew me in and thats why i'm picking her.