A Xicana Re-Vision of Chicano Muralism
A Xicana Feminist Perspective: Xicana Re-Vision
Photograph taken in 2011 of Gaby R. Gomez in front of Diego Rivera's mural, "History of Medicine in Mexico: The People's Demand for Better Health" (1953). This was the topic of my first Master's thesis, titled "Re-Conceptualizing Social Medicine in Diego Rivera's History of Medicine in Mexico: The People's Demand for Better Health Mural, Mexico City, 1953," finished in 2012 at UC Riverside.
My Xicana Re-Vision of Chicano and Mexican Mural History
As a Xicana feminist scholar contributing to a social art history that re-contextualizes Chicano muralism, I write about Chicano muralism using a Xicana feminist “re-vision.” My positionality as a first-generation Mexican American artist is an integral aspect of my visual analysis. I analyze Chicano muralism without strictly abiding to the standard of the three greats in Mexican muralism; Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco. I am very familiar with Mexican murals not just because of my academic training but also through my upbringing as Mexican American with Mexican parents, Mexican and Indigenous grandparents, and with family members still living in Mexico.
I approach the analysis of Chicano murals as uniquely their own thing — with some influence from Mexican muralists. Typically, art historical methodologies do not involve subjectivity and identity as part of the analytical strategy of interpreting an image, which arguably is why my dissertation is a form of activism. I view and engage with the history of Chicana/o murals through a personal familiarity and not simply to objectify or distance myself from it. My visual analysis on Chicano murals incorporates a lens or perspective that emphasizes the experiences of womxn of color artists in the Chicano art movement in what I introduce as a “Xicana re-vision” of the Chicano mural movement. I ask, What is the known history of womxn artists in the Chicano art movement? Who were/are these womxn muralists? What are portable murals? What is the difference between murals on walls and moveable murals? What type of portable murals are womxn artists/muralists producing and since when?
My research demonstrates the interconnecting ideas of the Chicano art movement, showcasing the possibilities of social justice and self-representation within each mural, but also acknowledging the artist — whether they identify as Chicana/x, Latina/x, Mexican, Mexican American, Hispanic, Indigenous, or Central American. I write womxn artists and muralists into Chicano mural history to enrich the canon on muralism in the Americas. Mexican muralists and artists such as Aurora Reyes, Rina Lazo Wasem, and María Izquierdo also join the ranks of this elite group of womxn artists who envisioned a more just future.
The use of the term Xicano/a/x compared to Chicano/a/x is a complicated debate that continues today in academic and public forums. I intentionally use the term Xicana/x because of my connection to indigeneity through my grandparents, my academic training, and to respectfully acknowledge Indigenous people, language, and culture as American art.
The term “Xicano/a/x” is derived from what scholar Dylan A.T. Miner referred to as “Xicano/a” as people who are generally known as Chicanos or Mexican Americans but “pay particular attention to the indigenous and Indigenist turn in Xicano identity and politics. From this perspective, to be Xicano is to be Indigenous. This spelling pays homage to the use by activists and artists who, for decades, have employed this spelling in reference to written Náhuatl” (Miner, Creating Aztlán, University of Arizona Press, 2014, 221). Classical Náhuatl is one of the Nahuan languages of Central Mexico or Valley of Mexico and is part of the greater Uto-Aztecan languages. However, Dylan A.T. Miner is referring to the Náhuatl language of the Aztecs/Mexica in general.
Through a Xicana feminist perspective the use of the "x" is intentional to represent Indigenous women and their allies as leaders, artists, and activists. The term “Xicanista” introduced by Chicana feminist scholar Ana Castillo is defined as an “activista (female activist), when her flesh, mind and soul serve as a lightning rod for the confluence of her consciousness (not just Chicana, not activista for La Raza, not only a feminist but Chicana feminist), is the new generation of women that now has documentation of her particular history in the form of books, plays, murals, art, and even films that the culturalists have produced” (Castillo, Massacre of the Dreamers, University of New Mexico Press, 1994, 100-101). I am reminded of what Chicana/x feminist scholar Gloria E. Anzaldúa wrote about Chicano/a art and the use of the Indigenous language Náhuatl to express a connection to indigeneity but also to uplift it. In the early 1990s, she wrote about her experience visiting the Denver Museum of Natural History to view the exhibition titled Aztec: The World of Moctezuma. Anzaldúa described the voice of Chicano actor Edward James Olmos narrating the audio tour speaking in Náhuatl and said, “Though I wonder if Olmos and we Chicana/o writers and artists also are misappropriating the Náhuatl language and images, hearing the words and seeing the images boosts my spirits.” She continued to add, “I feel that I am part of something profound outside my personal self. This sense of connection and community compels Chicana/o writers/artists to delve into, sift through, and re-work native imagery” (Keating ed., Anzaldúa, “Border Arte: Nepantla el luger de la Frontera,” in The Gloria E. Anzaldúa Reader, Duke University Press, 2009, 177-178). Anzaldúa’s acknowledgement of “border arte and artists” is the key to how I view, understand, and then analyze Chicano/a/x art and murals because the point of using the "x" is to dive deep into what these artists do by re-imagining or honoring native Indigenous imagery and symbols.
Image: Codex Borbonicus, page 14, Aztec/Mexica, detail of Nahui Ollin.
The image of the "x" is familiar to me through the concept of "ollin" in Náhuatl. The Aztecs or Mexica included "ollin" as part of their art, mythos, and language. The use of "x" is new and old all at the same time.
By placing the "x" in place of womxn or Xicana, I am also acknowledging the gender-neutral or non-binary liberation of the word women or woman and Chicana. The removal of the words "men" and "man" or Chicano or Mexicano is a form of challenging and decolonizing the gendered grammatical structures of English and Spanish and in some aspects Nahuatl as well. It is also a form of showing solidarity for people who choose not to identify with that gendered binary and to signal a shift in perspective on how we communicate ideas.
I write the "x" to provide an intersectional feminist theoretical framework to my dissertation. Thanks to Black, African-American, Afro-Latina/o/x authors, writers, artists, and scholars such as Kimberlé Crenshaw, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Angela Davis, and Miriam Jiménez Román because of their ideas and inspirational words I am beginning to develop as a decolonial social art historian. I also attempt to include a non-binary lens, and include the LGBQTAI+ community as part of this discussion of Chicano art as well as the social-political movement. Scholars such as Emma Pérez, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Jose Esteban Munoz, Chela Sandoval, and Gloria E. Anzaldúa are guiding my knowledge and understanding of queer theory that allows me to grow as a Xicana scholar, artist, and person.
My dissertation is a de-colonial act.❤
