Blog Post Week 3: Shifra Goldman

     In Shifra M. Goldman’s essay “The Iconography of Self Determination: Race, Ethnicity, and Class,” she analyzes the Chicano Art movement and how the art within the movement set out to portray a resistance to oppression and a desire to express identity. Shifra works to structure her essay around the basis of race, ethnicity, and class. On the issue of race, Chicano artists produced images that embraced the concept of Indian heritage. For example, Antonio Bernal’s 1968 mural displays both Pre-columbian figures (likely shaped after ancient Maya murals) and leaders of the Mexican Revolution. Other indigenous aspects within Chicano Art revolving around race include images of Aztec legends and symbols like eagles and warriors. Shifra also explains that ethnicity can be defined as “a set of activities, traits, customs, rituals, relationships, and other emblems of signification that are rooted in group histories and share to differing degrees by the members of a given national/ethnic group” (Shifra 169). She reveals how stereotypes are also intertwined with traits people believe belong to a certain ethnicity. Further, ethnicity is tied into Chicano art through the display of foods like tortillas, the use of Spanish, as well as images related to the Day of the Dead (Shifra 170). Class, or the division of people based on socio-economic status, is displayed in Chicano art mainly through images of people in the working class. For example, Emigdio Vásquez painted a mural in 1979 that shows a Chicano, a railroad boilermaker, a rancher, a crop worker, a miner, and more. Other Chicano art revolving around class tends to show laborers or images relating to labor.

    An image by Yolanda M. López that displays her own Chicana self-determination is The Nanny from Women’s Work Is Never Done series. In this mixed-media instillation, López displays her understanding of how  intertwining forces of gender, ethnicity, race e.t.c. are all intertwining forces in a system of oprpresion. The installation shows how Mexican women are seen as shadows to dominant society but are also the ones who are doing all the important work. As a Chicana, López understands that there are many parts of her identity that have been negatively subjected to racism and cultural appropriation. Her art brings light to all of these issues so that we can take action to change these harmful representations and appropriations.