Martha Ramirez Oropeza

Chicana Artist Martha Ramirez Oropeza is a muralist, philosopher, teacher, visual and theater arts practitioner and instructor, she is also a professor in Mexican Indigenous Nahuatl Philosophy, and Spanish Language immersion. In the Fall of 2019, I enrolled in Chicano 113 - Day of Dead Ritual, here at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Martha Ramirez Oropeza was the tlamachtihquētl (teacher). She is an amazing tlacuilo (artist)and a Tlamatini (wise person). She was an apprentice to the great Maestro David A. Siqueiros in Mexico. She is currently a resident artist at the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) in Venice, CA. Artist Judy Baca is one of the founders of SPARC. I really like how artist Martha Ramirez-Oropeza’s work is closely tied to indigenous Pre-Columbian culture. And I consider her to be a talented artist because her work has an important story to tell, a sacred myth that is meant to be preserved and passed onto future generations to keep our history and traditions alive through Topializtli (what should be preserved).

I will attach some photos of some of her powerful work.

"Sosteniéndome de mis raíces"
Martha Ramirez Oropeza

"Ce Acatl Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl" 1987 Martha Ramirez Oropeza

 Martha Ramirez Oropeza

Professor Alicia Gaspar de Alba's essay on the CARA exhibition, “Out of the House, the Halo, and the Whore’s Mask: The Mirror of Malinchismo”, is quite politically charged. I thought that it was an interesting description of the term “espejismos (a Chicano machismo-like self-image portrayed onto a woman’s body)”  in the performance piece of Las Tres Marías by Judy Baca, was a powerful experimental medium to be utilized, that was successful at expressing the art principle of visual economy. The simplicity in the design of the Chola, the mirror, and the Pachuca, was a brilliant idea that I believe would have automatically elicited a response to one’s questions about self-identity within a prejudicial society.

"Las Tres Marías (The three Marias)" Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985 Digital Archive.
Los Angeles: Hammer Museum, 2019.
https://hammer.ucla.edu/radical-women/art/art/las-tres-marias-the-three-marias

I can relate to the gender politics discussed within this essay, because I come from a large Chicana/o/x family. Many of my older family members were either Pachucos, Pachucas, Cholos, Cholas, Gangsters, members of the Brown Berets, or veterans of different wars. 

A question for Professor Alicia Gaspar de Alba: Do you think that if society were to take a different approach as to how we define gender roles, race, ethnicity, and social class, at an early age both at home and at school or work, we as a society would see more progress towards gender equality?