Perry Hernandez Week 7

In "Chicanx Graphics in the Digital Age” by Claudia E. Zapata, the author begins her essay by describing barbara Carrasco's digital art piece titled pesticides! This digital artwork was displayed in New York Times square in between ads. The work was a short animation showcasing the dangers within the agriculture business. It depicts consumers boycotting grapes after finding out that the workers were poisoned by pesticides while working.   Zapata goes on to explain how this was just the beginning of Chicanx art in the digital space. In fact, she even states that "personal computing, the smartphone, the internet, and the web represent the everchanging resources that have allowed Chicanx artist to champion communities underserved communitues and cultivare audience interactivity, in the process redefining graphic solidarity the greater good of solifarity". This quote, along with the artwork got me thinking about the ways in which digital art and social media have been used to help spread Chicanx activism. There are a ton of Instagram pages dedicated to spreading awareness to all kinds of causes, especially from marginalized communities. It is quite common to find a simple doodle with an aesthetically pleasing color pallet to have an infographic about important topics within the Chicanx community. When the covid pandemic began to take president and many people died or got fired, there were a plethora of infographics describing the many ways in which Hispanic/Latinx communities were suffering during this time. These infographics often had a call to action, such as calling politicians and local governments to do something, signing petitions, or even donating money to families directly impacted. Since the information was presented in an eye-catching manner, it was able to reach a much wider audience to listen and help.