Cultural identity, the identity or feeling of belonging to a group, but what does that mean for people? For many of people their cultural identity it describes who they are, their heritage, and who they are as a person. For Pat Mora she has been torn between her cultural identity; she is not accepted by their of her cultures. Frida Kahlo is torn between her home, Mexico, and her current residence, the U.S.A.. While Frida Kahlo and Pat Mora identify as Mexican for their cultural identity, Mora describes wanting to be accepting by both of her cultures, while Frida wants to go home to her true culture.
Frida Kahlo and Pat Mora both express emotion throughout their pieces. Pat Mora feels unwelcomed because neither of her cultural identities will accept her, “an alien to Mexicans/ a Mexican to Americans.” (14,15) Feeling unwelcomed has caused Mora to feel isolated; she is unaccepted by her heritage. Without her heritage Mora feels as if she has no history, no family, and no true cultural identity. In comparison, Frida Kahlo feels despondent because she is torn between her home, Mexico, and the United States. She loathes being in the United States because that is not her true home. Such as shown in her painting, “ Self-Portrait on the Borderline Between Mexico and the
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Frida is holding a Mexican flag and is dressed in traditional Mexican clothes even though she half way in America. Moreover, both Kahlo and Mora express forlorn because they are
All the actions performed by this group, were according to a treaty written between United States and Mexico in 1848 at the end of Mexico war. Art works by Chicano people established during 1960’s in Texas and this was an effort to emerge the literary, theatrical and visual arts by Mexican-American. The art work was a presentation of Chicano movement and focused to the socio-political activism and cultural identity. It is also said that this is not just an artwork, but a public forum that focus on the history that is, otherwise, lost, and is unique from the American art (Vargas).
Gloria Anzaldúa's personal experience growing up in the Rio Grande Valley was inspiration for Borderlands, which was published in 1987. In this highly acclaimed work, she explores the effects of the Mexican-American border on her self-identification as mixed race, Chicana, a woman, and a lesbian. Shunned from each of these groups, Anzaldúa creates a new mestiza identity which both allows for and encourages a synthesis of disparate elements of identity into a synergistic whole. A mestiza is a woman of mixed Caucasian, Hispanic, and Native American descent. This consciousness which encourages opposition and contradiction is made necessary by the conditions created by the geographical, political, and psychological border.
In the self-portrait López holds the snake firmly, in the portrait of her mother the snake is tied tightly yet almost invisibly around the sewing machine, while in the portrait of the grandmother she holds the snake tightly and indifferently, while holding a knife in her other hand. The snake has symbolic meaning for Mexicans. As Annette Stott identifies, “the snake is a native symbol of self-knowledge, sexuality and the cycle of life”, thus the snake in the images of the triptych, “represents a purposeful decision to reclaim an older part of an ethnic heritage that had become submerged under the national pressure to ‘melt’ into the mainstream” (57). Accordingly, the use and the meaning of the snake in the images of the triptych becomes obvious, it is both used to identify the Mexican roots of the family, but through its different depictions in each portrait it is also used to identify how the particular member of the family stands in subject matters such as national identity and sexuality. What becomes clear in the portrait of the grandmother then is that she is very comfortable with the fact that she is of Mexican decent and thus has no problems with her being a Chicana in the United States.
Borderlands is a concept that does not have to be seen to be considered borders and can often be placed subconsciously by ourselves. These borderlands are unsettled and unclear and are consistently changing. The famous singer Rosita Fernández was born in Mexico but spent majority of her life in San Antonio performing music. Rosita was very popular in the San Antonio music scene and eventually was inducted into both the San Antonio music hall of fame and the Tejano Music Hall of Fame. Rosita’s induction into both of these halls demonstrates her diversity border including her Texan connection as well as her Mexican connection since she is considered half Mexican and half Texan.
Chicano art as 3 common themes - Immigration, geography and displacement. Taking an activist stance, artists illustrate the historical presence of Mexicans and native people in the Southwest, the abuse of undocumented immigrants, racial profiling, and the militarization of the border. “Many Chicano artists have focused on the dangers of the border, often using barbed wire as a direct metaphorical representation of the painful and contradictory experiences of Chicanos caught between two cultures”. (Chicana and Chicano Art. Jackson, Carlos Francisco)
Murals are one of the main forms of activism in Mexico at the moment which depicted the poor living conditions and farming industries. It embedded the Mexican’s struggles and rebellion against the oppression of the United States. Many of these artworks symbolize the Chicano’s reaffirmation to unify their land and people. Immigration, displacement, and working conditions are common themes in Chicano art. Many artists illustrated the unfair presence of Mexicans and immigrant workers in the United States, such as the human rights abuses of undocumented immigrants, and racial profiling of workers.
In Self-Portrait the images on both sides of the border can be understood as the ideological tools of national propaganda. Kahlo keeps the history alive as she portrays a true vision of Mexico. Frida celebrates the cross-cultural identity that Mexico embraced after the turmoil of the revolution - a heritage of, Indian, American, Spanish, and British to just name a few. Her paintings became a connecting thread of Mexico’s history as she did not neglect tying the time in which she lived to the Aztec past (pbs.org). Victor Zamaudio-Taylor, an art historian, states that she has become "a model for Mexican Americans and Hispanics in the United States because she nurtures a sense of who [we] are and of a long history and of continuities."
Cultural identity is the sense of identification with or belonging to a particular group established in diverse cultural categories, including nationality, ethnicity, race, gender, and religion. Many individuals experience confusion about cultural identity when leaving their home country or visiting after not being surrounded by culture for a long time. In the video, "losing sight of your cultural identity.” Author, Ph.D. Kasia Suarez explains her struggle with cultural identity after coming to America, and how she embraces her own culture.
The immigrants entering the United States throughout its history have always had a profound effect on American culture. However, the identity of immigrant groups has been fundamentally challenged and shaped as they attempt to integrate into U.S. society. The influx of Mexicans into the United States has become a controversial political issue that necessitates a comprehensive understanding of their cultural themes and sense of identity. The film Mi Familia (or My Family) covers the journey and experiences of one Mexican-American (or “Chicano”) family from Mexico as they start a new life in the United States. Throughout the course of the film, the same essential conflicts and themes that epitomize Chicano identity in other works of literature
Anzaldúa was a Mexican American who was a well-known writer and had a major impact on the fields of queer, feminist, and cultural theory. Her most famous work is Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza which includes poems, essays, and short stories. Anzaldúa was no stranger to the use of literary theories in her writing, which is evident in her short story “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.” Here, the author uses a combination of feminist, reader-response, and psychoanalytic theory to show the struggle of being oneself when they’re Mexican-American. Through the use of feminist theory, she explains how a female is labeled as an “habladora” when she tries to voice out her opinion about something; reader-response theory provides the reader with an understanding of the struggles of self-identity, which they are able to relate to, especially Mexican-Americans; and lastly, psychoanalytic theory illuminates on her childhood experiences, which could explain why Anzaldúa believes in what she does, such as the idea that Anglo people have tried to tame her tongue—in other words, her language.
In the altar’s center is “a plaster image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, quarter-life size, its brown Indian face staring down on the woman” (Paredes 23). The implication of the stare is of criticism as the Virgin, symbolic of an ideal Mexican womanhood, looks down on Marcela, whose Anglo features starkly contrast with the Virgin’s, and whose actions are in opposition to the values that she represents. This carefully constructed scene is meaningful. Marcela’s lifeless body lies between the bed and the altar, and opposite to the altar is Marcela’s shrine dedicated to Hollywood movie stars. These are the visual images of the opposing forces that characterize the Mexican-American struggle for resistance against American cultural hegemony.
This painting was created in 1939 by Frida Kahlo. Kahlo created this painting shortly after her divorce with her then husband Diego Rivera. It is said that the painting is used to represent the different sole characteristics of Frida. One of the images represents the traditional Frida in Tehuana costume with a broken heart, the other is seen as an modern day independent Frida. The period of the artwork
The two women kneeling down in their bulky bodies symbolize strength and perseverance. Being a laborer during the Mexican Revolution meant that one had to be tough and resilient in order to survive. Rivera’s depictions of the two women symbolize Mexico’s triumph over the Mexican Revolution. He wanted to create paintings that spoke highly of his country after being hired to do so by the government of Mexico. His purpose was to inform the natives of Mexico that even in times of struggle, they still are strong enough to
This painting with the help of her detail illustration shows her journey through her own divorce from ex-husband Rivera and how she found
Throughout my experiences in this course so far, I have had many opportunities to reflect on my own past and have begun to better understand my own cultural identity. It has been much more difficult to wrap my head around than I would have predicted it to be because so many things play into the construction of an identity that it can be hard to look at all of those separate pieces together. My cultural identity, like all others, is more complicated than it first appears. I identify as a white person, a woman, an American, a gay person, and a feminist, just to name a few. While all of these labels carry with them stereotypes and expectations, they also interplay with the cultural influences I was subject to throughout my childhood.