Chicana Sexuality and Gender, Chapter 1

Ester Hernandez's
La Virgen de Guadalupe Defendiendo los Derechos de los Xicanos

In Chapter 1, Blake explains how Chicana and U.S. Mexican artists have reconfigured the images of the four major icons listen previously and how they use their form of expression to describe their experiences. Blake writes, “The artists, authors, or oral historians alter images and narrative representations to coincide with their perspective of themselves and how they exist within the culture” (24). In this passage Blake explains how some Chicana artists are able to rework previous images and stories of these icons in order to better fit their own experiences as a Chicana. I found examples of this from previous courses and in works of art that we have spoken about in class. For example, author Sandra Cisneros was able to refigure and rework her notion of La Virgen de Guadalupe in order to better represent her own sexual experiences in her essay, Guadalupe the Sex Goddess. Similarly, artists have been able to refigure her iconic image by undressing her and showing her undressed form like Alma Lopez’s Our Lady, or show her as a powerful woman like Ester Hernandez’s La Virgen de Guadalupe Defendiendo los Derechos de los Xicanos (The Virgin de Guadalupe Defending the Rights of Chicanos). Through these altered and reworked images of La Virgen de Guadalupe, Chicana artists and authors are able to use her altered image to represent their experience as a Chicana. I found that as we talked about La Virgen in class, I started to see more examples of how artists can rework an image or icon to better represent themselves. I also noticed as the chapters continued how other artists and authors are able to do the same thing for other icons, like La Malinche, Mexica Goddess, and La Llorona.