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Maria de Los Angeles; Pre-Columbian and Post Conquest Goddesses; Qu Esconde La Esperanza?/What Is Hidden in Hope?; Qu Esconde La Esperanza?/What Is Hidden in Hope? (Detail) Author(s): Alma Lopez Source: Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Vol. 20, No. 1, Latina/Chicana Leadership (1999), pp. 80-85 Published by: University of Nebraska Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3346987 . Accessed: 16/04/2011 02:08
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Alma Lopez

I grew up in northeast Los Angeles in a community named El Sereno during the Chicano Mural Renaissance of the 1970s and early 1980s. My visual world included wall-sized, meticulously spray painted graffiti lettering; bakery and market calendarsof sexy Aztec princes, Ixta draped over the lap of strong Aztec warrior Popo; tattoos of voluptuous bare-breastedwomen with long, feathered hair; cholaswith burgundy lips and raccoon-painted eyes; and murals mostly depicting Emiliano Zapata, Francisco Villa, and Aztec warriors. I did not realize the impact of this aesthetic until I graduatedfrom the University of California, Santa Barbara. When I returned to El Sereno, I knew that I would paint murals. My contribution to this visual world would go beyond the sexualized images of Ixta and the tattoo women to create images of women parallel in presence to Zapata, Villa, and the Aztec warriors. So I began to paint and, more recently,to create digital murals. As a California Arts Council Artist in Residence, I collaborated with ProfessorJudith Baca, the UCLA Casar ChaivezMuralism students, the Social and Public Art Resource Center, and the Estrada Courts community to produce a public art project consisting of six 8'x 9' digital murals on vinyl for the Estrada Courts Community Center. Each of the murals focused on aspects of the community: the World War II developmentof publichousing projectsin LosAngeles;the experienceof northward migration from Mexico due to economic pressures;the life-affirming force of a family working together to overcome personal tragedy and random violence; and the young men's issues of parenthood and carnalismo,or brotherhood. I designed two muralsrepresenting women with UCLA studentsPatricia Ramirezand Christian Gorocica: Maria de Los Angelespays tribute to the female family members and Las Four focuses on the young women of Estrada. The Las Four (cover illustration) focuses on four young women of Estrada Courts. They are sitting on the front steps of their homes contemplating their dreams while behind them a blue door leads them to Delores Huerta, cofounder of the United FarmWorkers;Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz, late seventeenth-century Mexican feminist poet; an Adelita, a soldier representing the many unrecognized women who fought alongside male soldiers such as Emiliano Zapata and Francisco Villa in the Mexican Revolution in the early 1900s; and Rigoberta Menchii, Copyright 1999byAlmaLopez ?

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1992 Nobel Peace Prizewinner for her struggle for the rights of indigenous people in Guatemala. Behind these four women is the image of the Aztec moon goddess Coyolxauhqui. Present in the young women's talk are the oppositions to their dreams: ever present violence in the community, both domestic and random; growing societal intolerance; and the struggles and joys precipitated by early motherhood. The historical leaders serve as spiritual mentors, nourishing a future generation of young women who can claim an ancestral legacy as ancient as the pre-Columbian moon goddess Coyolxauhqui. Maria de Los Angeles pays tribute to female family members: the grandmother who is the origin of the family and, with applied wisdom, the keeper of its history; the mother who embodies strength and nurturing; and the daughter who will carry on the family legacy as a proud and empowered member of the long lifeline of women. All three generations are placed in a culturally historical context accompanied by Coatlicue, the pre-Columbian earthgoddess whose image acknowledges the origins of our indigenous past, and at center, the Virgin of Guadalupe, the postconquest Catholic mother figure.

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Maria de LosAngeles, 1997, digital mural created for the Estrada Courts Community Center, East Los Angeles, with Patricia Ramirez, ProfessorJudith Baca's UCLA Cisar ChaivezCenter muralismstudents, and EstradaCourts Community, 8' x 9'.

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Pre-Columbianand Postconquest Goddesses, 1997, digital print on vinyl, 8' x 9'.

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is Que'EscondeLa Esperanza?/What Hidden in Hope? 1995, mural at the Plaza Community Center, 648 Indiana Street, Los Angeles, 14' x 60'.

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is iQue'EscondeLa Esperanza?/What Hidden In Hope? (detail).

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