Latinx Art/Inspiration
"That, in essence, sums up why Selena remains so culturally vital and dearly beloved. She was at once traditional and modern, a Mexican-American star who bound together both worlds in a singular way—and brought excellent Tejano music to a mainstream audience."
"News of her death was greeted with the sort of widespread mourning usually reserved for a political assassination. For Selena’s fans, writes ethnomusicologist Manuel Peña, “it was as if their collective aspirations, embodied in this sultry, yet down-to-earth, barrio-bred hermana (sister), had been punctured just as surely as the bullet-shattered artery that killed the young diva.” When her first English-language album, Dreaming of You, was released posthumously that summer, it sold 175,000 copies in a single day. Selena became a crossover star only in death."
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Mexican/American
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American - Poverty, drug addiction, a parody of backwoods stereotypes.
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"Poor and working-class whites have tended to be painted as spectators, reactionaries, and, even, racists. Most Americans, the story goes, just watched the political movements of the sixties go by. James Tracy and Amy Sonnie, who have been interviewing activists from the 1960s for nearly ten years, reject this old narrative. In five tightly conceived chapters, they show that poor and working-class whites, inspired by the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Party, started to organize significant political movements against racism and inequality during the 1960s. Their book explores an untold history the New Left."
CHICANO - people of Mexican origin living in the United States
1945 - Family comes to the US
Fleeing political loss in Sonora, Mexico
Keep traditions alive in the US
Fight to assert American identity
Brown Berets
"Street takeovers, demonstrations and marches as well as Aztec Dancers, jarocho music and hiphop flows were part of events around the city. Activists, union leaders and members of immigrant and Chicano rights organizations spoke in solidarity with the immigrants rights movement, denouncing racism, patriarchy, imperialism and white supremacy.
On August 29, 1970, a protest against the Vietnam War organized by Chicano Power activists in East Los Angeles was violently targeted by police. Organizations such as the Brown Berets developed a political ideology of Chicano Nationalism and the link between Chicanos living in the US and Mexico. Among the brutal acts of police repression was the murder of three people, including the left journalist Ruben Salazar."
"If you are beaten down, I am beaten down; if the cops succeed in attacking Black people, it is a setback for all oppressed people. Even more so being a comrade as a word is also a word of struggle. There is a war being enacted on us- this war is waged our communities through evictions and gentrification, in our schools through budget cuts, white washing history and police on campus and our workplaces because we are paid less than what we produce- we are super-exploited. There is a war is a war even on our cars through the retenes. We must be comrades in the class war being enacted upon us...
Capitalism is racist but it also targets Blacks, Latinos, Chicanos and immigrants (or a combination of those) with the same viciousness. We are not part of separate struggles and we need to unite and challenge each other. Organize for socialism and a Black and Brown united fight against capitalism. We are not allies we are comrades in the struggle!!"
CONTEMPORARY PROTEST ART
MAZATL
"La Autonomia es la Vida, La Sumision es la Muerte" or "Autonomy is Life, Submission is Death"
"Without a fight, there is no victory."
Zapatista Uprising + Female Inclusion
"On the first day of 1994, 3,000 indigenous Mayan Indian guerrillas came down from the mountains of the southern province of Chiapas and declared war against the Mexican government. The insurgents – representing some of the poorest and most exploited people of the world, armed with everything from AK-47s to sticks and stones – had deliberately chosen New Year’s Day to commence their uprising, for it was the date when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect. This cynical Neoliberal agreement was the opportunity the Mexican ruling class had long sought to intermingle with Corporate America, with the hope it would finally propel them into the First World. But for the Indian peasants and farmers, it was their death warrant. NAFTA aggressively promoted corporate privatization, removed Mexico’s right to review foreign investment proposals, banned subsidies to the indigenous farmers, favored U.S. imports and, most significantly, required Mexico to alter its constitution by abolishing Article 27 which provided land to those who worked it. Nearly 100 years had passed since the Mexican Revolution had triumphed to return indigenous land through agrarian reform; and although there had subsequently been many broken promises, NAFTA now threatened to take away from the peasant farmers what little was left...
And so, with nothing left to lose, the indigenous workers organized – and a new kind of army emerged. The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) took its name from the legendary Emiliano Zapata, the slain anarchist hero of the 1910 revolution whose army of peasants had risen up against the wealthy landowners. “We are the product of 500 years of struggle,” the Zapatistas decried in their First Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle. “But today we say Ya Basta! Enough is enough!” The Zapatista Uprising revived the Mexican anarchism that had been dormant for years, put a spotlight on the oppression of 20 million indigenous people and represented the first major resistance against global free-market Neoliberalism that had reigned un-policed in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991."
Denise Beaudet
UFW
Melanie Cervantes
"The appearance of the Virgin of Guadalupe to an indigenous man is said to be one of the forces behind creating the Mexico that we know today: a blend of Spanish and native blood. Her dark skin and the fact that the story of her apparition was told in the indigenous language of Nahuatl and in Spanish are said to have helped convert the indigenous people of Mexico to Christianity at the time of the conquest. She is seen as having a blend of Aztec and Spanish heritage.
Her image has been used throughout Mexican history, not only as a religious icon but also as a sign of patriotism. Miguel Hidalgo used her image when he launched his revolt against the Spanish in 1810. She could be seen on the rebels’ banners and their battle cry was “Long Live Our Lady of Guadalupe.”
Emiliano Zapata also carried a banner of the Virgen of Guadalupe when he entered Mexico City in 1914.
Pope John Paul II canonized Juan Diego in 2002, making him the first indigenous American saint, and declared Our Lady of Guadalupe the patroness of the Americas."
"Tonantzin is a representation of mother earth or mother of corn as embodied by Indigenous women in the Americas. This portrait is of a Rarámuri (Tarahumara) woman. I include the serpent symbology because prior to a Judeo-Christian tradition which views serpents as evil, Indigenous matriarchal worldviews associate serpents with spiritual wisdom, femininity and being grounded. This piece honors the spiritual and ethereal grandmothers who connect me to every relation living and in the spiritual realm."
"The Zapatistas wear masks as a rejection of traditional representative politics and individual identity in favour of direct democracy, equality and to undermine hierarchy and authoritarianism....
The Zapatistas wear masks for protection and egalitarian anonymity, yet they don’t wear masks all the time. When being photographed or interacting with outside visitors they wear masks to conceal their identity and to invite everyone into the Zapatista struggle."
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