Welcome to Mexicana

Welcome to Mexicana, where women wear hoop earrings, eat with a wooden spoon and have their hair pulled back with a part in the middle.

It’s a place where men lean against cactus when they sleep, with a sombrero pulled over their eyes.

Yolanda M. López revealed the stereotypes of Mexicana, her term for the false Mexican culture portrayed by U.S. media, at Titan Student Union Titan Theater on Wednesday. López, an artist and self-proclaimed provocateur, also discussed Chicana feminism and illegal immigration in her presentation, which was a part of Associated Students Productions Speaker Series.

“These images trivialize our culture,” López said. “It’s U.S. cultural imperialism.”

Examples

Her video, “When you Think of Mexico: Commercial Images of Mexicans in the Mass Media,” categorized the four most common stereotypes: sleeping Mexicans, Spanish señoritas, bandito slobs and illegal immigrants.

From pictures of “Sesame Street’s” Ernie to the cover of Alan Moody’s book, Sleep in the Sun, the images of the sleeping Mexican inspired López to create The Mexican Chair, a satirical sculpture of a chair with a cactus seat cushion.

“No one in their right mind would sleep leaning against a cactus,” López said.

The video analyzed advertisements such as the Frito Bandito, Walt Disney’s Zorro, Taco Bell’s “Run for the Border” campaign and countless tortilla chip, enchilada and burrito packages with the Spanish señorita image.

López said the señorita image is so popular, it has become the “new Aunt Jemima.”

Getting her start

López started as a community artist in San Francisco’s Mission District with a group called Los Siete de la Raza in 1968. Since then, she has viewed her art as a tool for political and social change.

In 1978, López completed a master’s of fine arts at UC San Diego. It was there that she created a poster of a Mexican Indian pointing outward, with the caption: “Who’s the illegal alien, Pilgrim?”

López’ most famous works are her paintings that reinterpreted the Catholic icon, the Virgin of Guadalupe, as a more powerful female role model. In a three-piece series, she placed images of her grandmother skinning a snake, her mother running a sewing machine and herself jogging within the Virgin of Guadalupe’s traditional sun-ray halo.

In Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmations, R.G. del Castillo said, “The traditional icon is customarily portrayed as a passive and submissive figure. López’ Guadalupes are mobile, hardworking, assertive, working-class images.”

“The art in this series does not simply reflect an existing ideology; it actively constructs a new one,” del Castillo said. “It attests to the critique of traditional Mexican women’s rules and religious oppression in a self-fashioning of new identities.”

Backlash against art

However, The Portrait of the Artist as the Virgin of Guadalupe received harsh criticism from some Catholics who believed López mocked their revered icon.

When her images appeared in the Mexican magazine Fem, vandals trashed several Mexico City kiosks and the magazine office received bomb threats.

López said she chose to use the Virgin of Guadalupe because it is the only consistent female in Chicana art.

Chicano Studies Professor Naomi Quiones introduced López at Wednesday’s event.

“Yolanda is a major influence on me as a Chicana feminist,” Quiones said. “Yolanda’s images expanded my imagination.”

Quiones said the work of Chicana feminists is as important now as it was in the late 1960s. “We were invisible,” she said, “and unfortunately we still are.”

López also showed slides from her multimedia series, “Cactus Hearts/Barbed Wire Dreams.” This series consists of various installations dealing with the mythic Mexican image (romantic and suave), the contemporary Mexican image (maids and illegal immigrants) and a section called “Things I Never Told my Son About Being a Mexican” (images in toys and children’s clothing).

López’ current project, “Women’s Work is Never Done,” is a series of prints promoting feminism.

It includes images of a Chicana woman voting, Amy Biehl, Dolores Huerta and Chicana broccoli pickers.

“Racism occurs and classism occurs in ways that we don’t even notice,” López said.

“We all need to have our antennas out. We live in a media soup. We have to be discerning. We have to be visually literate. It’s the picturesque that’s dangerous.