Orozco, Jaqueline

    Greetings everyone. My given name is Jaqueline Orozco. Nonetheless, I prefer to be called Jackie, as that is the name I am most comfortable using. The pronouns I commonly employ are she/her/hers/they. At the moment, I am a third-year Chicanx and Central American Studies major. However, I am considering taking on an African American Studies or American Indian Studies minor. In addition, I am interested in conducting research on the exploitation of female domestic workers in Los Angeles and the effects of mass migration on Indigenous Mexican communities. I became interested in this course upon noticing that a significant portion of the material would be covering issues concerning gender and sexuality and feminism in art, which I have long been meaning to study and understand in greater depth. Moreover, I am especially interested in this course because I am curious to learn more about the ways in which art has influenced and impacted Chicanx identity. At the conclusion of the quarter, I would have liked to obtain a greater comprehension of all this material. 

    ¡Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphics, 1965 to Now, composed by E. Carmen Ramos, examines the spectacular ascent of Chican@ graphic creators and the works they subsequently produced. These such works became significant in conserving and reconstructing newfound identities and newly-formed or long-established political movements. This piece aims to consider artists and content that rose to prominence during the late twentieth-century and early twenty-first century.
    Several portions of the text captivated a sincere interest within me. In particular, Ramos disclosing the profound impact and historical legacies that Chican@ graphic artists had on civil rights activism was almost completely unfamiliar to me. Nonetheless, I remained intrigued. Undoubtedly, I possessed some awareness about Chican@ graphic creators producing graphic pieces and patterns that were implemented during the East Los Angeles Walkouts. There were banners and handouts shown throughout the demonstrations that contained both significant information about the cause along with heartening messages about Chican@ pride and Brown Power. However, I never considered the notion that Chican@ graphic artists and their creations maintained actual important roles within civil rights activism that often even went beyond the confines of the Chican@ movement and community. Ramos comments on this when she shares, "Chicano posters and prints announced labor strikes and cultural events, raised awareness of the plight of political prisoners, schooled viewers in Third World liberation movements, and, most significantly, challenged the rampant invisibility of Mexican Americans in American society (24 and 25)." This is especially remarkable when one considers that it is through mere graphic art that Chican@ creators managed to forge newfound relationships and lines of solidarity with similarly marginalized groups. It was almost imperative that these unions be formed, as Chican@s could not achieve liberation when other communities remained in a position of subjugation. Graphic art seemed to be the medium that allowed Chican@s to be proper allies, without overstepping their boundaries. 
    To continue, a long-anticipated turn in the implementation of Chican@ graphic art within the Chican@ community, came about during the mid-twentieth century when César Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and the National Farm Workers Association joined the Pilipinx farm workers' grape strike in Delano, much to my immense surprise. I could have never fathomed how important graphic artists and their pieces would be to the overall cause. From creating murals to banners to calendars that depicted important figures such as Emiliano Zapata and la Virgen de Guadalupe, artists managed to galvanize an entire Chican@ community and had them further connect with a movement that was all too familiar to them. Last quarter, I studied much about El Teatro Campesino, which was created at the command of César Chavez to educate farmworkers and community members about the evils of the agricultural industry and provide an outlet for them to release their woes and frustrations. And learning what I have from the text, I can definitely draw some parallels between Chican@ theatre and Chican@ graphic art and what they both did for the United Farm Workers Movement and subsequently other causes of the Chican@ movement. It is necessary to consider these creative forms when discussing matters concerning Chican@ identity and the Chican@ movement because so much of what has been built and accomplished in the community has been on the backs of these outlets.                                                                                                                   Across the paper, there are further commentaries made on specific graphic art pieces and creators and important topics that are explored through this medium. As an introductory reading to this course, I believe this text has helped further pique my interest in the subject of this course and has added more to what I aim to learn about. I anticipate anxiously what will come next.