CARA’s Politics of Representation

This week while reading Alicia Gaspar de Alba’s CARA’s Politics of Representation article I learned a lot about Chicana feminism and the contribution to the Chicano Art movement. She exemplified the idea about the misrepresentation of Chicana Artists being featured. The statistics mentioned in the article were mind boggling and hard to process that such low number of Chicanas were featured in comparison to males. The sexual politics of the Chicano Art movement is referred in the reading and it is disappointing to read the views that men had and how they underestimated that they could not excel in "hands-on labor work". What I found most interesting in the reading is that the CARA exhibit was dominated by males and that even Chicano males did not help to empower and represent their Chicana peers. Having women in art is much needed because otherwise we will not be able to understand and internalize the true struggle and experience that they uniquely portray in their art. For instance, if women are not represented and show their own work, men will not do it themselves and thus, the voice and history of women will be erased. Although progress has been made as Alicia Gaspar de Alba mentions, there is still a lot that can and should be done to be more inclusive of women. During her lecture, she allowed me to appreciate the importance of being an ally and support the views of feminist. Although I do not consider myself a feminist I truly support and understand the views of feminist and will always be there as an ally.