Out of Embargo: Publishing My Second M.A. Thesis Manuscript (2019)
Yermo with Gaby at Chicano Park Day, San Diego, CA, April 2019.
Chican@ Time Warp: The Enduring Legacies of Chicano Muralism Displayed in Guillermo "Yermo" Aranda's and Los Toltecas en Aztlán's Mural La Dualidad (The Duality) by Gabriela Rodriguez-Gomez, 2019.
My second Master's thesis is out of embargo.
Please see the link above to view the manuscript.
The purpose of the embargo was to delay open access, meaning the link above was not available to the public for two years. I chose to embargo my M.A. thesis because I was going through a very difficult time in my personal life. Months before I completely finished my manuscript I was in an accident. I was riding my bike and was hit by a moving vehicle. I was celebrating my 10 year anniversary with my husband. I was sent to the nearest hospital and was seen as a trauma patient. I had a full body and brain scan -- because I did lose consciousness and experienced a concussion.
I went blank for a minute. It was the strangest feeling in the world. I don't want to relive that again. I was physically and mentally in shock for over a month afterward, but the deadline to submit my thesis was fast approaching. I remember not writing for weeks, slowly gaining the strength to complete a sentence. It was even harder to come to terms with the fact that academia was not going to extend my deadline or have any sense of empathy for my situation. Alas, my own advisor could not support an extension and I was at my last option, finish or drop out of graduate school.
I still think about this feeling of trauma and near death. I also think a lot about how support in academia is limited, sometimes it does follow through when needed but other times it doesn't and you are left alone. I was seeking psychological help as I was going through all of this, and I appreciated my time with my doctor to talk about my experience. Still, I continue to be scarred from nearly losing my life and nearly losing my career goals. My dreams of becoming a Ph.D. at UCLA were almost taken away from me because of an action done by someone else. This was something that I had no control of. My support system, my colleagues that knew about this, helped me write and get through what I needed at the time. Mil Gracias Dafne and Fer! My advisor also pushed and coached me to get my last chapter and conclusion done. Her diligent commitment saved me. Dr. Villaseñor Black knows how hard I worked to get that thesis done on time. Muchisimas Gracias Charlene. Siempre.
I wanted to write a reflection on why I chose to embargo my thesis and what I was thinking at the time of publishing it. This took a serious labor of love. I felt that my own blood, sweat, tears, and heart was poured out into my writing. I was also feeling threatened. Other Ph.D. graduate students and tenured Professors studying Chicano art and murals were interested in my research methods, asking me a lot about my topic and where I conducted field research. I was not prepared at the time for competition that was getting too close to my research ideas and artists that I was interested in for years prior. I experienced this exact thing later on with another project but I had to learn the hard way --- lesson learned. The embargo was to show myself that I finished the thesis manuscript on my terms and that I also had the power to not display or publicly announce it. If you had access or a subscription to ProQuest prior to 2021 you would be able to read the text. It was not until November 2021 that a public link on escholarship.org was available.
Most would see this as a selfish act, and I agree. But sometimes we need to be more selfish, because it took so much out of me to get this done and to make it my own. As a Xicana scholar and artist I have had many instances in life where my ideas, my intellectual labor and creativity was appropriated by others, taken out of context, and zero credit. At times I felt I had no ownership over my creations because I was also taught to give to others or to support the community that needed it --- but never returned the favor. This was part of my own process of identifying as "Chicana or Chicano" that took so long to come to terms with. The reason is because when you are part of such a large multiethnic/multicultural community you get engulfed by it, consumed, commercialized and then sold or re-purposed for its own benefit. The community comes first and there is no room for yourself. After that accident I told myself, ENOUGH ya BASTA con los de mas. It's up to me to get this done.
Photo by Gabriela Rodriguez-Gomez, July 2019. El Centro Cultural de La Raza, Balboa Park, San Diego, CA.
This picture was taken around two months after the accident and a month since I published my thesis. I was hurting. My body was aching but I walked to El Centro Cultural de La Raza to take a picture in front of La Dualidad (The Duality). It is beautiful and inspirational. I will always cherish it. Yermo never stop creating.
***as I continue writing...***
I would like to share more content about my thesis.
In 2018, alongside Professor Alma López Gaspar de Alba, I completed two creative projects related to my master's thesis research. The first is an infographic of my theoretical framework and the second is a short video uploaded below.
The infographic: "Chicana Futurism"
Gabriela Rodriguez-Gomez's Infographic on La Dualidad (The Duality) and the concept of "Chicanafuturism" coined by Dra. Catherine S. Ramírez. To learn more please visit Professor Ramírez's website.
The purpose of the visual guide or the infographic is to show what are the three elements or concepts that comprise the idea of futurism or "Chicanafuturism" and how I apply this theory to my visual analysis of the mural. The project helped me organize the thesis, develop my chapters, and provided a step-by-step approach to locating what I thought were representations of the future or technological and environmental advancement or consciousness. The point of my infographic was to demonstrate the visual details of the entire mural, sectioning into three parts or three spheres of influence, to explain "Chicanafuturism" and the Chicano mural movement.
The video below explains my visual analysis of La Dualidad (The Duality) mural and how I incorporate the idea of "Chicanafuturism" into my theoretical framework. Dr. Catherine S. Ramírez's insight on the concept of "Chicanafuturism" was fantastic. I am so thankful for Dra. Ramírez taking the time to answer all my questions during our meeting at UCSC. My alma mater. Go Slugs!
