What did I set out to do in this class?

I knew that I was challenging myself by taking this class because I do not consider myself an artist. However, I do have artistic sensibilities and appreciate the opportunity to expand my views on identity as a person who embodies the oppressed and oppressor and seeks to understand the effects of this embodiment in the perpetuation of internalized racism.

What were your initial objectives and expectations? Were they personal? Were they political?

As stated above, my idea was to explore the concept of identity from the perspective of someone who experiences the turmoil of my inconsonant identities. My expectations were that through arts-based research, I would be able to have a deeper understanding of my identity as a Latin American. I’m apprehensive about attributing a monolithic identity to all Latin Americans. However, the colonizing gaze and internalization of racism (bell hooks, 1992) are some of the experiences that Latin Americans have in common.

I cannot separate the personal from the political in this project. I do not believe that art has to be only political or educative. Likewise, I believe that “[i]n the arts, symbols adumbrate; they do not denote” (Baron & Eisner, 2012). Thus, by nature I see arts-based research as having this ability to be transformed by the experiences of the viewer/participant and to be polysemic.

Did you want to elicit and/or evoke and/or understand or make sense of and/or persuade? What did you want your project to serve and do?

I did not have any altruistic or preachy aspirations with this project. They were purely personal. I wanted to understand the reason why I have always perceived Kahlo’s Two Fridas as the embodied struggle of two conflicting identities and what this embodiment meant to me. I do not know if my project will serve a purpose or do anything to engender dialogue in the topics presented, but like anyone who has endeavored to create something meaningful, I hope to evoke some visceral feelings in the viewers/participants.

What was the first arts-based artifact you produced/collected/elicited, whether it was a sketch or something more “finished.”

The first arts-based artifact that I collected was an image of the Two Fridas. Its symbolism has always moved me and brings about emotions that I can only explain visually.

What did you produce/collect/elicit next?

While pondering the origin of the self-hatred of the oppressed, I decided to look for images of the caste system imposed in Latin America by Europeans. The image attached below is the first one I saw. It betrayed years of oppression and the development of self-hatred fueled by the desire to survive and be accepted. In the words of Freire “[t]heir ideal is to be men; but for them, to be men is to be oppressors” (2015, p.45).

Make a list of all these pieces and place each in the order in which it was produced and collected. Write down what you were thinking and feeling with each image listed above. You might also document your feeling/thoughts between images. What was the relationship between you and your materials? Why did you choose the materials you chose? How did the materials you used mediate your thinking?

The next arts-based artifact that I collected was a picture of a boy, Samuel Lange Zambrano, an actor in the Venezuelan film Pelo Malo written and directed by Marina Rondón. In this picture, we see a boy dreamily contemplating one side of his head with straight hair while the other side we can see his naturally tightly curly hair. This image conveys for me negation of an important part of who I am. Many times, I heard my mom complaining about my hair while combing it. At those times I wished for silky straight hair. It also reminds me about how a whole industry has developed around self-hatred.

While looking on the Internet for hair straitening products sold in Colombia, I found a skin whitening cream sold in Bogotá, Colombia’s capital. It promised to whiten even your intimate zone. My reaction to this image brought to my mind bell hooks’ words that “[t]he deeply ideological nature of imagery determines not only how other people think about us but how we think about ourselves” (1992).

I also found several hierarchical caste systems developed in the 17^thcentury by Spaniards and Portuguese and imposed on Latin Americans for legal, social and political purposes. However, the most comprehensive is the one cataloging 18^thcentury Mexican painter Miguel Cabrera’s casta paintings. There were 16 paintings categorizing the caste system but 2 of them remain lost. Here are a few images of these paintings. Most of the paintings depict their subjects dressed in the European style and with European features. In these paintings, the castas deemed the lowest were dressed in ragged indigenous garb and portrayed as violent and lazy.

Did the relationship between you and your materials change over the course of the semester?

I found myself looking at these images as more than representations of Latin Americans’ inner turmoil and the perpetuation of our self-hatred. I could see how capitalism was and is behind these imposed casta systems in which some benefited from the degradation of others.

I also find myself feeling more satisfaction when I created artifacts that were more tactile, while finding the process of photoshop utterly plastic and far removed from me. It was like giving birth to a stranger. I just cannot relate to the finished product.

Did you find it necessary to add text or sound to your imagery? If so, why?

As the project progressed I felt the need to add some very racist adages to my images in order to elicit some reaction from the viewers/participants.

Reflect upon how your thinking about arts-based exploration changed as you were creating/curating images.

As I curated my images, I could see how they became “a heuristic through which we deepen and make more complex our understanding of some aspects of the world” (Baron & Eisner, 2012). Through art, I was exploring and understanding my identities as a Latina.

Has your thinking/feeling about scholarship changed as you were creating/curating images? How? Do you plan to continue using arts-based methods as part of your scholarly activities?

I started to see the possibility of adding arts-based research as one of my methodologies in my exploration of identity, in particular in my ongoing research on math identity.

 Did anything unexpected happen as you were working on your project? What, if any, are the dissatisfactions with what you’ve done?

I had chosen photographs and Photoshop as my medium because as previously stated, I do not consider myself artistically inclined. Surprisingly, I found myself frustrated by the lack of tactile production within my artifacts. I wanted my project to be more organic. I do not perceive my artifact as inviting as I was hoping it could be. It looks too polished to elicit participation.

Were your objectives at the end of the semester the same as those at the beginning of the semester? Explain.

Throughout the whole process I had hoped my project would elicit some kind of reaction from the participants, but somehow my desire to “educate” has become a desire to explore and question. In Maya Pindyck’s words, I hope for my project not to be to “teachy” (personal communication May 5, 2018) but more participatory.

What do you think the strengths of your process and products were?

I had a clear image of what my project was going to be but this clarity of purpose has become a point of frustration for me.

How would you characterize/assess your experience taking this course? Anything you would like to add?

I have loved every step of the process. I have discovered that my fear of not being artistically inclined kept me from creating a more organic artifact and that I should have challenged myself more.

Throughout this course I have had immense admiration for my colleagues:

Regina’s poetic creativity and willingness to create art that is transient in nature; Amanda’s quest to capture childhood memories in a way that is connected to her cultural tradition; Nick’s desire to disclose structural racism through his Long Island maps; Anna’s tender añoranzas for her oldest son’s lost childhood and the expectancy of having to let go of both her children as they grow into adulthood; Lisa’s craving to create a space that is welcoming to her students, and Shawn’s incredible artistic talent.

Gene, I’m extremely grateful for this journey. It has challenged me and given me a new worldview. I hope arts-based research will help me in my growth as an academician.

Ordinary Lives; Extraordinary Acts

I found myself taken aback by Emily Dickinson’s quote found in Maya Pindyck’s website

“I’m nobody! Who are You?

Are you—Nobody—too?”

I am reminded of another quote that I hold dear to my heart because it brings memories of someone whom I loved dearly and who was instrumental in my life and the lives of so many but remains an unsung hero. This person is my paternal grandmother. This is the quote:

           “[F]or the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs”(George Elliot, Middlemarch, 1872).

Maya Pindyck’s projects on her website spoke to me of ordinary lives that turn into not so ordinary ones by senseless acts of violence. Her project Out of Lezley: Elegy, brought to mind Shawn’s project. I found the eyes in the gouache portraits very telling. It reminded me of Shawn’s self-portrait with a noose around his neck while wearing on an American flag tie and looking straight at his audience with eyes that spoke of the tiredness that an African American male feels while trying to keep it together. The eyes spoke to me of unspeakable pain and hopelessness.

The intersectionality of the written word and images in her Water (Re)marks Reassemble brought a new dimension to a poem I had never read before but somehow these images open a visual image in which I can see the shimmering silvery river running through my fingers. The blue hue of two windows in one of the photographs made me think of a reflection on the water when the sun is low in the horizon and the bluest tinge is reflected back.

Maya Pindyck’s participatory projects, Today I Saw and Light on Sound, remind me of Gordon Matta-Clark’s integration of art and society. These projects revive my desire to make my project participatory by which my project is transformed by the participants.  I can see in Pindyck’s projects how art transforms communities and in turn communities transform art. My question is, do communities transform the artist?

The Language Matters Project calls to mind Amanda’s project and her desire of capturing childhood memories. How much can we capture the memories of those who came before us by the sense of touch? How much of what we communicate or say that is not verbal? How much of our memories are in our sense of touch?

Kahlo’s Demons Reinterpreted

In preparing for my presentation this coming week, I have questioned what made me use Frida Kahlo’s Two Fridas (1939) as my inspiration. When I saw this work of art for the first time, I deeply related to what I perceived as an identity struggle at the time, the identity struggle that Latin Americans and Latin America as a whole have been burdened with for centuries. Maybe Kahlo’s artwork was meant to exorcise the demons of physical and emotional pain inflicted on her by her experiences and by Diego Rivera, her former husband at the time. However, the Two Fridas for me is about how an entire culture keeps trudging along trying to find its own identity. I may have derived a meaning from this artwork that was not intended but I guess this is how art works. Patricia Levy (2017) states that to art “[o]ur response may be visceral, emotional, and psychological, before it is intellectual.”

I had lived in Colombia my entire childhood and part of my adolescence, and while living there, I never questioned the inclusiveness of the Latin American culture. If you had asked me about racism, I would have told you that we, Latin Americans do not suffer from this ailment. It was only when I went back for a visit about five years ago when I realized how wrong I was and that this ailment was of the worst kind. Its main symptom was self-hatred. It wasn’t been easy to delve into Latin American commercials, mainly Colombian, and find beauty products that people buy in large quantities in their quest to become more attractive (read more European looking). The main beauty products are those that promise straight hair and lighter skin. I also noticed that most of the people on Colombian television do not truly represent the typical Colombian. Most of the time they have lighter skin and are quite young, but for a few exceptions in which they present the stereotypical Afro-Colombian women dressed as maids and talking in a certain uneducated manner. I was surprised to find that a cousin of mine, who has a typical indigenous nose, had plastic surgery to look more attractive (meaning more European), and that another cousin who has beautiful dark skin like my mom’s burned her face while trying to lighten it with a cream that has hydroquinone, a depigmenting agent. Latin American politics reflect this self-hatred as well. Time and time again many Latin Americans vote against their self-interests. I have had many conversations with Colombian compatriots who support policies that belittle people of color as well as their culture. In the words of Freire (2000), “for them, to be [human] is to be oppressors.”

My project may not accomplish in others that awakening and recognition of self-hatred that Kahlo’s Two Fridas had for me. However, exorcising my demons, as Kahlo did through her art, may be good enough for now.

“[T]he actual work of art is what the product does with and in experience”                            (Dewey, 1932.  Art as Experience, p.3).

I have often wondered when art becomes Art. Is it when the artist conceives the idea in her head and decides, “this is what I want to do?” Or when finally, at the end of several journeys her ideas are translated to the canvas? Or when the viewer/perceiver interacts with it?  Will my project be considered art? Is it because I birthed it? Or because someone interacts with it?

I also wonder if my project could be considered art-based research. Gerber et. al. in Levy (2017) states that ABR brings awareness and knowledge of self and others, and appreciates and includes nonverbal knowledge.

This takes me to what I experienced when viewing Nick’s maps and my reaction to them. I had this feeling of outrage and sadness. Nick’s maps with the numbers spoke volumes to me. Suddenly, I recognized a reality hidden from me before. Nick could just give us some statistics and we still could understand the reality of the systemic racism on Long Island, New York but the coloring of the maps with the numbers was more effective. I could not escape my feelings by rationalizing and analyzing them. I felt them first and then I analyzed them. I had a visceral reaction to them. My body knew before my mind that this was a crime scene. Marginalized groups are denied the opportunities afforded to power groups. Thus, I argue that according to Dewey, Nick’s maps are an actual work of art in that it make me aware of the systemic racism on Long Island. Following Gerber et. al., it should be considered art-based research.

My project has taken me to roads seldom travelled. I have become reacquainted with past demons, and instead of denying their existence, I have decided to confront them head on and investigate them. I feel apprehensive, yet hopeful of evoking strong reactions from my project’s viewers. I found a few images I would like to share with the class. These images took me on this journey. These are images of the caste system imposed by the Spaniards on Latin Americans, used as a way to tax them and keep control over them. There were 16 “scientific” classifications, but I have found so far eight clear images of these sixteen classifications.

These are the sixteen classifications:

The Mestiza/o classification: the result of the union of a Spaniard and Amerindian.

The Castiza/o classification: the result of the union of a Spaniard and a Mestiza.

The Mulata/o classification: the result of the union of a Spaniard and an African.

The Morisca classification: the result of the union of a Spaniard and a Mulata.

The China Cambuja classification: the result of the union of an African and Amerindian.

The Loba classification: the result of the union of a Chino Cambujo and an Amerindian.

The Chamiza/o classification: the result of the union of a Castizo and Mestiza.

The Coyote classification: the result of the union of a Mestizo and an Amerindian.

In the images of the first six classifications, everyone is dressed as with the garments of the nobility. The last two classifications dressed everyone in rags and depicted them as sickly or violent.

These images speak volumes on the colonizing gaze (bell hooks, 1992).

While reading the Christina A. Trowbridge chapter, Drawing Attention: Notes from the Field, I could not help but draw parallels between her experiences with dioramas and my project. Trowbridge states, “when this activity is done with other people (sketching and looking and talking) participants’ plural realities and experiences can be shared and the group can create together knowledge…” (2017). I hope that my project accomplishes precisely this, the creation of collective inclusive knowledge of what it is to be someone who embodies both the oppressor and the oppressed. Gene pointed out the universality of this embodiment when he stated, “I also think that each of us combines some aspect of the oppressor-oppressed duality” (personal communication, Feb. 5, 2018). I concur; however, I’m focusing on this duality in the Latino/a culture, in my reality as a Latina.

Trowbridge, in her description of the sketching activity, highlights the importance of multiple perspectives and many truths. This emphasizes for me the importance that my project be collaborative and have a space in which participants’ voices are heard. The idea for the participants to be “discoverers” (Trowbridge, 2017) resonates with me; however, I want them to be co-creators as well. The project, the Three Doras (I’m very grateful to Anna for her suggestion but I cannot help and feel that I’m being a little pretentious), will have space in which the participants can write or draw anything they want as a response to a targeted question while looking at themselves in a mirror. This mirror is meant to represent a metaphorical look into our inner selves.

Art affords opportunities (as defined by James Gibson in Trowbridge, 2017) and productivity (Trowbridge, 2017) for both artist and participants. It can open a door to new possibilities never contemplated and generate new perspectives. And, if a viewer/participant chooses not to engage, that too is a form of productivity. He/she is being agentive in his/her choice of whether to engage.

Trowbridge discusses how the Visual Thinking Strategy helps with teachers’ identity formation and agency. Through her teachers’ quotes, Trowbridge describes how being in the moment helps with self-awareness and focuses on multi-perspectives. Art can provide the artist and the viewers/participants an opportunity for the development of self-awareness and polyphonia.

For teachers who do not want to sketch, Trowbridge gives them specific prompts focusing on the teaching process. I wonder why she did not let the task be more open-ended instead of limiting the teachers’ focus to certain topics. This also makes me wonder about the specificity of the question I want to place around the mirror in my project, the question I wish to use as a heuristic.  Am I allowing for the participants to focus on what’s important or salient for them or am I re-directing their focus into what’s important for me? If I really do not want to obscure anyone’s focus, what do I need to ask so the question highlights their perspectives more than mine? Gene said it very well when he stated, “in your own project, however, the artist is the subject” (personal communication, March 6, 2018). As I am the subject of my own work, the question needs to stem from my honest self; the process of this art is emergent and contingent and at any moment, I may change the target question, even during the exhibit itself.

In the New York Times article Answering Society’s Thorniest Questions, With Performance Art by Megan O’Grady, artist William Pope.L states the importance of interactive art. I hope to accomplish this with my project by creating a space in which viewers can write their thoughts. I want to instigate a moment of introspection in which we, as marginalized people, do not look first for racism outside but look inside. Maybe this won’t sit well with some viewers, but that it is my point precisely. There is systemic racism and prejudice driven mainly by those in power that at times has become subconsciously internalized. However, we must confront the hegemony of internalized racism, and in taking on such an endeavor, becoming, in the words of Freire, conscientização (2015). I hope for mutuality in this project in which artist and participants engage in dialogue as art, becoming a conduit for identity formation.

In my last post, Gene asked me a series of questions that go to the heart of everything we do as teachers, scholars, researchers and human beings, questions that point to the social enterprise of identity formation. While reading Luttrell’s articles, I perceived the teenage pregnant students as somewhat agentive in re-creating their identities. This made me think how Luttrell created a space for these young women in which “the transgressive image” can become an act of subversion. They were fashioning new identities out of what they could find in popular magazines that they could relate to. However, many contradictory forces were at play and there was little they had in common with the women in the images in these imaginary worlds. This exercise did not bring to the forefront the pain beneath the surface that comes from “giving birth” to a new identity. Luttrell and these young women were engaged in a subversive act of identity formation, seeing themselves from different perspectives than that of the colonizing gaze. I could not help wondering about how painful this exercise of answering, “Who am I?” was to them. They had to look at the glaring reality of their lives in which lack of representation, (“[t]here is nobody who represents me in this magazine”) and internalized racism (“avoid ‘acting colored’”) are part of their daily lives, to be discussed with someone who did not share their experiences. As Nick states, we must acknowledge the “imbalance of power.” I recognize that we as researchers must tread carefully when engaging in these acts of subversion. William Pope.L states, “letting go of a certain amount of control in order to test … ideas outside the predictable became part of the art itself” (O’Grady, 2018). I hope my project creates a space in which, if anything becomes obscure, it should be the artist, rather than the participants.

Sorry for the late post.

I found the article Pregnant Bodies, Fertile Minds: Gender, Race, and the Schooling of Pregnant Teens by Wendy Luttrell a little problematic. This exploration of self in which pregnant teenage girls confront the lack of representation, internalized racism and awareness of selfhood, spoke to me of systematic racism and classism in which individuals — and not a lack of equity in the distribution of resources —  are blamed for their circumstances.

There were several themes in this article that struck a chord with me as a Latina. One was when Luttrell discusses Marisa’s attachment to the land. This attachment is made manifest by Marisa in her sadness about “her lost freedom of movement” (2003). How we connect to the land is also connected to our self-perception. Marisa alludes to this attachment by comparing the constrictions of living in an U.S. Northeastern city to the freedom of movement of living in a Mexican city. I wonder if Marisa saw herself as limited also by the new culture of the U.S. I was born and spent my whole childhood and adolescence in Medellin, a city seated deep in the Andes. When you step outside your home, you are surrounded by mountains. The connection between mountains and the people born in this region is immense. We are proud to be called montañeros — mountain people. I remember going back to Medellin to visit family and having tears rolling down my cheeks when I caught a glimpse of the Andes. I had not known that I missed them so much, and I finally understand why I love to go to the mountains –any mountain will do.

While reading these chapters, I often wondered how painful it was for these young girls to answer Luttrell’s question, “Who am I?” (2003). It couldn’t be easy for these young women to face their realities — lack of representation and internalized racism — and to “[grow] up hard and fast” (2003). Luttrell discusses the psychological scars of growing up ‘hard.’ I wonder how the girls felt when they discussed their self-portraits and their collages in front of someone who did not represent them as women of color and immigrants. Did they just comply because it was all they knew when most teachers were white and middle-class? Or did they rebel by only giving the bare minimum? I wonder how their exploration of self-hood and participation impacts who their audience is.            

The article ‘A camera is a big responsibility’: a lens for analyzing children’s visual voices by Wendy Luttrell, discusses a mode of visual research in which children’s voices are not obscured by adult interpretations. My question is, how can the adult researcher in her analysis allow for her co-researchers/participants’ voices to be heard without illuminating or obscuring (Tobin, 2015) the children’s narratives? Luttrell describes how children’s visual narratives in general may be dictated by the “inspecting gaze” (Foucault, 1980 in Luttrell, 2010). This echoes for me hooks’ ‘colonizing gaze’ in which marginalized groups see themselves through the lens of the power group, in this case the adults in the children’s lives. However, she argues that in these visual narratives, there may be the promise of “alternative narratives” (Luttrell, 2010). This brings to mind the promise of the “transgressive image” in which the marginalized break away from the colonizing gaze and “interrogate old narratives” (hooks, 1992). This is exemplified by Cornelio’s explanation of why he took a photograph of the family’s living room instead of his mom because she was too busy working and “waiting [for the living room] to get done” (Luttrell, 2010). Luttrell discusses how this visual narrative runs antithetical to the narrative of welfare reforms that portrays single mothers’ work ethics as lacking.

This article exemplifies for me the vulnerability of marginalized groups such as immigrant children and youth. I thought it was very courageous of these children to share their visual narratives with Luttrell and her researchers. As an immigrant Latina, I know what it is like to live under the inspecting gaze and trying to live up to it. I know that Luttrell says that there were many opportunities for the students to opt in or out of this research, but at times that desire to belong can drive you to do things that otherwise you would not agree to do. I always wonder how we, as researchers and scholars, can ensure that those who are vulnerable do not feel obligated to participate in such research but do it of their own free will.

I was struck by Luttrell’s discussion of “identity formation” and the in-between worlds immigrant children and youth live in while conforming to a new country and a new language. Immigrants know that feeling of being in limbo, in which you feel out synch with both the new culture and your own culture. In that in-between place there are incredible possibilities for subversive representations. My project is about the subversive act of imagining yourself different from the judgements behind the colonizing and inspecting gazes and interrogating these old narratives (hooks, 1992, Foucault, 1980 in Luttrell, 2010) by bringing them to the surface and holding them to the light.

The article, Children Framing Childhoods and Looking Back, also by Luttrell, emphasizes the importance of visual research with children to interrogate the old narratives, wherein children and their communities are viewed as deficient and in need of fixing by the educational system, in order to bring forth narratives that are antithetical to the old narratives of deficit.

In my project, I want to inspect these imposed narratives and see them for what they are, “internalized racism” (hooks, 1992). I found that Luttrell’s article relates to my life experience as a Latina. Latin Americans have been treated as children by European countries and the U.S., albeit with the help of the local governments. This reminds me of a passage in the book Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee, in which the character Atticus Finch in an argument tells his daughter “the Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people” (2015, 246). The arrogance of this statement brought forth a lot of painful memories. I went to school with Spaniard nuns, the Carmelites. They always treated us as though we did not know better. It was almost as though the Catholic Church saw us as children who did not know how to take care of themselves and so they needed to protect us from ourselves. The castes created by the Europeans, deemed scientific at the time, looked at the mixing of the “races” as diminishing the “pure” races, especially the Caucasian race. Everyone else was treated as inferior and not deserving of the entitlements that the Caucasian race enjoyed. Through these articles, I could see the possibilities of visual research to illuminate that which has been obscured by the denial of the existence of internalized racism in communities of color.

“Decolonization can only be complete when it is understood as a complex process that involves both the colonizer and the colonized” Samia Nehrez in bell hooks (1992).

This quote in the introduction of bell hooks’ Black Looks: race and representation highlights for me the importance of understanding and acknowledging Latin American racism to help start the road to the restitution of humanity for all Latin Americans. Latin Americans pride themselves as being non-racist, but even in our everyday language we can see the hegemony of racism. In phrases such as “mejora la raza,”(marry someone with light skin and European features to improve the race); “soy un negrito/a pero un negrito/a  fino/a,” (the “ito” softens the hardness of blackness, while “fino” means that he/she has Europeans features);  “somos negros detrás de las orejas” (the implication that even without any African features, in Latin America, almost everyone has African ancestry);  or “tenemos una abuela negra en el armario,” (having a African grandmother is a part of most Latin American families).  Latin Americans are quick to deny their racist views, but a very superficial analysis of everyday language stresses how racism permeates all aspects of life in Latin America. We, as an ethnic group, have, in bell hooks’ words, “internalized racism.” bell hooks challenges African-Americans to imagine themselves differently so they can invite others to “break the colonizing gaze” (1992). However, this colonizing gaze has been internalized by Latin Americans whose ancestry is European, Indigenous and African. This internalization can be seen in the film Pelo Malo, the story of a 9-year-old Venezuelan boy wanting to have straight hair for his school picture. This is despite the fact that the film maker, Mariana Rondon, a woman that because of her phenotype would be considered white in Venezuela, says that the main intent of this film is to explore the issue of identification with respect to gender and race in the “other.” However, the title of the film speaks of racism to many Latin Americans who have suffered the indignity of having been told that they have “pelo malo.”  Rondon says that each audience had interpreted the film as a political, religious, gay or race film.

This film and bell hooks’ concept of “breaking the colonizing gaze” makes me think of how Latin Americans refuse to acknowledge our historical racism and how social policies and politics exemplify this racism. Indigenous groups in Latin America have been forbidden to speak their mother language. Only recently, governments are starting to recognize as national languages indigenous languages other than Spanish and Portuguese. Yet, education in public and private schools and universities is only given in Spanish, Portuguese or English. The hegemony of these languages ensures that the colonizing gaze is still very much part of Latin Americans’ lives.

“…we cannot control our images” bell hooks (1992).

bell hooks describes the desolation of blacks when they succumb to the colonizing gaze. Latin Americans have to succumb to that gaze and internalize it. The years of economic and social upheaval, social injustice and dictatorial governments, in which the richest criollo or mestizo oligarchies govern the “others,” can be explained by the negation and denial of racism in Latin America. Today, Americans are appalled at how Russia has interfered in U.S politics, but for years the U.S has meddled in Latin America politics with the permission of local governments to ensure the continued control of a few powerful families with strong European ancestry.

As a Latina, something that intrigues me greatly is bell hooks’ call for African Americans to break away from the colonizing gaze by seeing beyond the hegemony of the established duality of good and bad and to create new images that are transformative. As I discussed in my last journal entry, Europeans introduced a caste system to Latin American in order to ensure their dominance. I still remember during my social studies class studying some of these classifications such as Spaniard, Criollo, Mestizo and Mulatto. Looking back, I no longer wonder why these classifications manifested in my everyday life when I heard my family discussing my unruly hair, “mi pelo malo.” Now, I am grateful for mi pelo malo and thank those women who don their beautiful afros.

“…her anger had no voice” bell hooks (1992).

In Chapter Seven, the Oppositional Gaze, bell hooks describes how black women, by not identifying with the Hollywood images of female blackness or lack of these images, created a space in which the stereotype of White femaleness by this industry could be dissected. bell hooks, in discussing African American female film maker Julie Dash, describes how Dash stressed that being a spectator with an oppositional gaze made her a filmmaker. African American women spectators such as Dash found pleasure in dissecting the films without identifying with the female protagonist.

Perhaps I can create a space in my project in which Latino/as can dissect forms of racism in our countries such as language, advertisement, movies or telenovelas (soap operas). The crux is how to break away from the hegemony of the dichotomy of good and bad representation and in the process create a space for transformation.

In the article, How an Artist Learned About Freedom from ‘the Negro Motorist Green Book’ by Meredith Mendelson (2018), artist Derrick Adams uses as inspiration “the Negro Motorist Green Book” published by Victor H. Green for his show “Sanctuary” at the Museum of Arts and Design. His articulation of how Green and Jacob Lawrence’s “Migration Series”’ symbolic liberation has come into question during these tense times reminds me of a video a colleague of mine shared on Facebook in which a young African American woman visiting an AppleBees in Independence, Missouri for the first time was accused by a white waitress of leaving without paying her check on a previous visit. Police were involved and asked her to leave the premises. The young woman could be heard crying, protesting that she had never been there before but the policemen paid no attention to her and asked her to stop behaving emotionally and to leave immediately. Being the “other” is being exposed to all kinds of dangers in which you can be accused without any proof and your only crime is that you are not White.

I hope to create a space in my project in which we can confront our racism as Latinos and start to heal the wounds that ail us.

The article Multimodality, multisensoriality and ethnographic knowing: social semiotics and phenomenology of perception by Sarah Pink highlights how anthropology and the multimodality scholars interpret the relationships among the five senses.

Multimodality perceives communication as the relationship between ‘modes’ and ‘media.’ Kress (2005) in Pink (2011) defines mode as ‘culturally and socially produced resources for representation’ and medium as the ‘means for distribution of these representations-as-meanings.’

According to Pink, multimodality scholars like Kress and van Leeuwen give the sense of sight a higher ranking than all the other senses. This gives me pause and makes me think of the world of those without sight. Kress intimates that all the senses work together but deliver separate information. Is multimodality scholarship suitable to explain how the other senses make sense of the world when you lack sight? And how do they somehow overcome the lack of sight to create other forms of interpretation?

Kress (2005) in Pink (2011)  indicates that words per se ‘rely on convention and on conventional acceptance, words are always general, therefore vague.’ This takes me aback and makes me think that there are people Kress did not think about when making this statement.  Pink discusses pictorial representation as having more meaning than the semiotic symbols of language; however, some of the symbols used in three dimensionally  encoded languages, such as American Sign Language, may be pictorial symbols, which seems to straddle the symbol-picture dichotomy.

This makes me think of how can I do  art-based research in identity open to everyone who cannot rely on all five senses. Pink states that this five-sense modality is a social and cultural construct. Geurts  (2003) in Pink(2011) articulates Merleau-Ponty’s (2002) phenomelogy stating that ‘perception begins in the body and ends in objects.’  This makes me think of streaming reality, the kind of reality experienced by drone racers while wearing goggles and receiving live stream footage from a camera mounted on the nose of the drone. The pilots see what the drone sees. These pilots, when talking about their experiences, give a detailed account of how their whole body feels. There is no separation of the senses. The whole body is engaged in this streaming reality experience. Pink (2011) states, “visual anthropology and any other number of other disciplines…suggest that images only become meaningful in the context of their viewing.”

Pink also proposes a kind of ethnography that is a heuristic-like ethnography, in which we actively engage with the participants. Being a Latina embodying the oppressor and oppressed, qualifies my life experience as the heuristic needed for this project, where I will provide space for people to post their own sentiments and feelings.

The article Directing Energy: Gordon Matta-Clark’s Pursuit of Social Sculpture by Cara M. Jordan  describes Gordon Matta-Clark’s community activist projects in which he provided spaces where people were actively engaged in social issues affecting their community. Jordan argues that Matta-Clark ,like German artist Joseph Beuys, strives to redirect human kind’s destructive tendencies into the creation of socially relevant artistic spaces. Jordan recounts how the New York financial crisis led to the abandoning of the city by upper and middle class families and left it to the poor and the corporate elite, who erected “luxury apartments… in the name of urban renewal” in certain parts of the city, while other parts remained abandoned and dilapidated.   This social crisis created room for Matta-Clark’s “alternative space movement,” which gave voice to activist artists and the marginalized. The article brings to mind Lauren’s project and how she will provide a space for those without a voice. This led me to the realization that I need to provide room for viewers to not only reflect but also voice their sentiments when viewing my project. Matta-Clark’s concept of de-authoring art speaks of a more democratic and direct relationship between art and its audience, which I hope to emulate through my project.

The New York Times article Black With (Some) White Privilege by Anna Holmes (2018) resonates with me as a Latina in the importance given by those in power to features that get us closer to whiteness, such as lighter skin and straight hair. Latinos with these features are deemed prettier, more desirable and less threatening than those that have darker skin and curly hair.

The New York Times article, Brief Encounters, Enduring Portraits of the Displaced, by Jori Finkel (2018), connects for me Matt-Clark’s “alternative space movement,” in which those without voice are given space to see the possibility of normalcy in traumatic circumstances, and Pink’s ethnography, in which the artist produces knowledge along with the participants. As an example, Al Sohl, an artist discussed by Finkel has as her goal not to intrude on those who are displaced but to create a space in which both the artist and participants work through the trauma of displacement.      

These are some of the paintings I want to use in my project. This one in particular depicts the caste system created by Europeans in Latin America to ensure their control of marginalized groups.

This is one of the many paintings by my son Daniel. Daniel has high functioning autism and lives pretty much inside his head. He suffers from auditory integration dysfunction, so expressing himself verbally as well as in written form is extremely difficult for him. Art gives him an outlet he cannot find otherwise.

He paints and sculpts self-portraits. He started painting one face but has progressed to three faces in one. He has never discussed the reason for that number and I do not know if he is aware of this particularity. Daniel is conscious that people see him as different. I wonder if through his self-portraits he’s trying to perpetuate or re-create his self-identity. Anderson (2015) views identity narratives as fluid.  Art may offer Daniel the fluidity needed to re-create his identity without making him too vulnerable to the outside world. The three faces may be the different identities he perceives in himself. Varela (1999) discusses the interweaving of microwords (our immediate context) and microidentities (who we are at an immediate moment, in an immediate context). Daniel seems to want to explore and understand his microidentities.

Creating a project around Daniel’s exploration of his microidentities sounds exciting but I would feel that I’m intruding in his private world.

Instead, I can explore the identity of Latin Americans as we struggle to come to terms with the fact that we embody two or three races, races that represent, in the words of Freire (1970), the oppressed and the oppressor. I want to investigate how Latin American artists have explored this issue and how it translates into the visual arts. Kahlo’s Two Fridas embodies the concept of who we are as a pueblo but does not illustrate the inner turmoil we suffer because our oppressed identity has been portrayed as lacking, while the oppressor identity has been equated with superiority.