CARA exhibit by Alicia Gaspar de Alba

The chapter of Alicia Gaspar de Alba's book critiques the first  Chicano Art exhibit that lacked to highlight Chicanas artwork. As Gaspar de Alba states the fact that more Chicanas were not included demonstrates the "sexual politics of the Chicano Art movement, which was then replayed by the CARA exhibit " (122).  Throughout the chapter, there are multiple examples of the sexual politics the author refers, such as the statement muralist men made about women not being made to be muralist, because it required to much hands-on labor. These blatantly sexist statements have been recurrent in the Chicano Art Movement. Gaspar de Albas asks us to think if Chicanos and Chicanas were resiting the same things? By laying out the two main roles (La Malinche and Adelitas) that defined Chicanas in the movement, we see that Mujeres were facing an extra layer of oppression within their own community. By defining Chicanas through La Malinche, the Chicanos were viewing them as traitors and would sexualize them by viewing them as Adelitas. Gaspar de Alba explains Chicano men channeled their energy to race politics and viewed Chicana Feminisms as sidetracking, and not part of the larger vision for the movement. The conversations being held in the "Feminist Visions" section also recognized that Mujeres were the only ones concerned with feminism. In class and in the chapter Gaspar de Alba also breaks down the different forms of feminism and the fact that this exhibit should be analyzed through various feminist lenses (third world, european, class etc. The positioning of the "Feminist Visions" is also telling, which really surprised me when reading, since the curators placed it in the middle of "traditions" and "futures", which Gaspar de Alba argues replicates the Chicano Movements vision of women being tools to populate the world full of zapatas and adelitas (128,131).  I enjoyed the in-class lecture and this chapter because they gave in-depth context to Chicana Art and the struggles Chicana Artists have faced in the movement.