Carmen Lomas Garza is a unique Mexican-American artist because her artwork tells customs and cultures instead of racial oppression or political resistance. She mostly based her artwork from her childhood and personal memory. Garza’s mother, Maria, took a big part in Garza’s career by teaching her and her sister to use watercolors and paint lottery tablets, inspiring them to become great artists.
The chapter “Politics and Life in Tejas: From Tejana to Chicana” discusses about how racism influenced Garza’s painting. Garza was born in an era operated under institutionalized racism, where minorities were not allowed to obtain a higher degree at school or work and get equal pay as professionals. The painting Cakewalk (1987) was about a fundraising event to enable Mexican-American to get a bachelor’s degree. Despite the efforts made towards educational reform, Garza did not attend school until junior high and when she finally attended a school, segregation still existed in her daily lives, such as when she had a gym class, the white girls get to shower first, leaving the place steamy and muggy for the people of color to shower afterwards.
In conclusion, Garza’s artwork is the product of her commitment to preserve her community by showing the world Mexican-American culture through her lens. Garza has successfully shown the world the Mexican-American culture based on her memories and experiences from the era when she was born until recently, where Garza has become a great artist. Garza’s interest in detail and her belief that art is a dialogue brought her this far. Like a dialogue, her art goes two ways: Garza shared a message about the past and the present through her paintings and viewers relate to Garza’s paintings based on his or her own experiences.
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