Yolanda M. Lopez/Who's the Illegal Alien Pilgrim?

For this blog post, I wanted to reflect on the image Who’s the Illegal Alien Pilgrim? 1978. I really like this image even though is a bit different from Yolanda’s focus on women representation, because I had seen this image a long time ago at a MECHA conference. During that time, I had only been in the US for about 3 years and I was trying to figure out my place here. I felt like I didn’t belong here. I felt like I was invading a space in a place that was not for me. When I went to that conference, they were giving out flyers and this image was in one of them. It quickly caught my attention because it had the word "illegal" on them and I had learned that that’s what people called me. However, after I saw the image of the Aztec crashing the immigration plans and questioning who was the illegal immigrant, I thought of my ancestors and how they had been in this land before it had been the US. I can’t say that after looking at the image, my feelings completely changed, but I can definitely say that it was the start of my questioning about my belonging and the reshaping of my identity. This image was very empowering for me not only because of the political statement but also because it showed a very empowered and strong individual who may look like me or other people who look like me. Also,  at the time, I didn’t really understand the concept of who a Chicano was, but this image gave me a sense of pride and commonality with other people who look like me even though we spoke another language and our experiences were somewhat different. I found similarity and compatibility with them. It is always fascinating to think about the power one image can have on an individual the way that image had in me.