Blog Post 4 - Smithsonian Art Museum

Sun-Raid Raisins by Ester Hernandez, screenshot, time 26:00

The panel for Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphics, 1965 to Now from the Smithsonian American Art Museum was very interesting. I thought it was engaging to see Claudia Zapata again as a Curatorial Assistant of Latinx Art. I found Ester Hernandez’s background enlightening. I enjoyed that she mentioned her familial backgrounds that led to inspiration within her artworks. Her background as being born into the Movimiento with her family as a “woman-centered farmworker family” and the women having a history of labor strike involvement in the early 1930s and the 1960s with the United Farmworker Movement, with her father being first in the barrio to join. I also thought it was cool that she has a history of seeing the Teatro Campesino. I had just taken a Chicano theater class the previous quarter so I enjoyed that I can apply what I have learned from a previous class to what she experienced with the Teatro Campesino. 

One thing that stuck with me was when Ester Hernandez spoke to Dolores Huerta. Huerta talked about the importance of making images of oneself because, in the media, Chicanas are portrayed as “people to fear or to pity”. Thinking back on the readings, I definitely agree with this. I can see how Huerta’s statement about making self-images that can go against the image that others impose upon Chicanas is connected to the readings. Ester Hernandez was gracious enough to give an example of how this applied to her when she was censored for the first time at UC Berkeley. If I got to ask her some questions they would be, did you fight the censorship of your artwork at Berkeley? If so, how did you go about it? Did you experience censorship again in the later parts of your artistic career and how was that handled?