Cortez Jesus

 Hello everyone, it makes me sad to know that we aren't all introducing ourselves in person on campus but still glad that we get the chance to do so online. My name is Jesus Andres Cortez my preferred pronouns are he/him and I am a second year transfer student which makes me a senior. Previously I went to Santa Monica College which is where I decided that I wanted to major in Chicanx Studies. Since then I have also added the education minor. After graduating I plan on being a counselor for community college students and possibly a professor as well (eventually). Although I am not as interested in research, something I would like to study is the accessibly to voting in low income neighborhoods. Since the largest population of voters are those who don't vote at all I would like to take a deeper look at what causes this in the places ive grown up. 

The reason I decide to take this class is one because it is related to my major, and fills my camino, but also because I have taken a class with you before. It was also an art classes and I got the chance to paint for the first time. I also learned a lot from communities I had lived by my whole life and connected it to images that belong to the chicanx community. Which reminds me of some of the images shown in the essay by Carmen Ramos in this weeks reading. I love how they talked on how racism and segregation shaped the art world and art history. Most art created by artist of color would not be considered fine art but still the art we had created served its purpose by providing identity and political viewpoints. I really enjoyed the art connected to La Huelga and more specifically el teatro campesino because I just took the class about chicano theater with J. Ed. Araiza. Which focused a lot on teatro campesino and the works of Luis Valdez throughout the years. The work he made had the same amount of impact as murals and other artworks that erected in times of turmoil for our communities where we shed light on problems such as patriarchy, hegemony, identity and etc.