Yolanda M. Lopez - Nuestra Madre

As Karen Mary Davalos recounts Yolanda M. Lopez's life and how all the events she lived through allowed her to create the pieces she did, we are given insight into what message Lopez wants being portrayed from her art. She wants to dismantle all the stereotypes made about Mexicans and the culture and allow Chicanxs and Mexicanxs to identify their culture as they identify with it, not as it's been so wrongly popularized through the media.

One of the pieces that I felt stood out to me the most, was Lopez's Nuestra Madre (from the Guadalupe series 1981-88). A lot of what Lopez's work consist of is building a piece that allows the audience to see the reality of what stereotypes are built of and see how wrongly portrayed people are. This piece in particular, however, had a more feminist approach- which Lopez's work is dense with- that Chicanas could identify with. Since a lot of feminist work in this era was aimed to benefit white women, including these type of pieces in popular media was essential. Her use of 3 icons from the  Mexican culture to build one figure that stands for values that don't hold women up to unrealistic and unnecessary expectations. She used icons that are often represented for their characteristics in terms of a male-dominated view. For example, Coatlicue being known because her son saved her from being slain by her daughter or La Virgen de Guadalupe who was incredibly prude and would never be unfaithful. Rather than using these common descriptions of these icons, Lopez uses the traits that identify them for who they truly are, strong empowered women.