Shepherd, Amanda (Week 3)

 Having lived in mostly hispanic communities my entire life, I grew up seeing this image in the homes of my neighbors and friends, and thought the cities in numerous forms.  When I was younger, I understood it to be a religious symbol of great respect within the hispanic community   but I didn’t understand the history and deep significance it held.  I married into a hispanic family and my children were raised with the traditions, beliefs, religion, and cultural of their Father’s family.  By immersion I became more familiar with and understood more about the significance. More recently after taking Censored! Art on Trial, I learned about the more controversial side and significance of the Virgin of Guadalupe.  After reading “Our Lady of Controversy” by Alma Lopez, I learned the importance of challenging  the ideas of ownership of religious iconography in regards to personal and spiritual identification.  Furthering that the Religious Elite have promulgated their concept of traditional womanhood and proclaimed that “real women” are submissive, heterosexual, maternal, modest, etherial beings while denying their inherent sexuality and purpose beyond their subjugation as means of control.  Through that class, I learned the ways in which activists and reformers are rightfully challenging the patriarchal control of female identity, sexual autonomy, and spiritual expression.  So that class really broadened my understanding of the Icon, it’s history, and it’s further.

Artist: Alma Lopez