Week 5 Chicana Print Making

In Where are the Chicana Print Makers?, Holly Barnet-Sanchez focuses on the importance of Chicana artists and how they shaped identity throughout the Civil Rights Movement with printmaking. It discusses how Chicanas increased the usage of printmaking in late 70's through 90's and how it continues to increase today, especially with the advancement of technology. The article describes how these Chicana artists contributed to politics, gender, and other movements. For example, the artwork titled, Who's the Illegal Immigrant Pilgrim?" by Yolanda M. Lopez and how it was a statement relating to the politics of immigration. A section in the reading that stood out to me the most was the Patricia Rodriguez calendar that symbolized the physical and psychological brutalization. The calendar showed a woman that was looking down, "lost in her thoughts." This print make is a powerful statement to the community because it captures the notion that women of color have struggled throughout the years and have kept their silence, but now it is time to take a stand and have voices be heard. Furthermore, self-portraiture was an element that allowed women of color to reclaim their bodies and define their own self instead of having society define them with their norms and expectations.This goes back to the redefining of la virgen de guadalupe. She redefined womanhood in its own unique way. Print making has allowed chicana artsits to find another way to have their voices be heard. It has assisted women in finding a voice in their communities.