Carmen Lomas Garza

This painting on canvas done by Carmen Lomas Garza in 1993 (Pg. 81) is called Barbacoa para Cumpleanos, which translates to "Barbecue for Birthday". This image caught my attention the most because I am a princess performer at kid's birthday parties. I go to countless birthday parties and celebrations every weekend and a lot of them are for Hispanic/Chicanx/Latinx families. This image looked very familiar to me and brought a lot of joy, comfort, and familiarity. The barbecue, the cake, the paper decorations and especially the piñata (all of which Cortez mentions as well) are things I see very often. I really love this image because family is a huge part of Hispanic/Chicanx/Latinx culture and so is having large parties to accommodate them. I also love this image because there is so much going on, and if you look at each person, there is almost a little story going on with each person. Cortez briefly goes through what some of the people are doing, but I spent about ten minutes just looking at and analyzing the photo and enjoyed making up stories for each person, and what they're maybe talking about or what they're doing. I hope you all can do the same and just enjoy looking at the photo. :)