Nuevas Voces

Life in Utah can be hard for Latinos where the majority of the population is White. Latinos in Utah sometimes experience subtle and overt racism and discrimination. At the same time, Mexican Americans can also feel like outsiders when they travel to Mexico. In this episode we examine this dichotomy, and also explore the work of Linda Vallejo, a Chicana artist from California, who produces art to challenge cultural normalization and implicit bias about skin color with her series "Make ‘Em All Mexican." She also challenges the internalized negative attitudes some Latinos have about having brown skin. https://www.artesmexut.org/part20

The term “cholo” generally carries a negative connotation. It refers to a Mexican American gangster. But the fashion, the tattoos, the Old English graffiti writing style, the lowriders, and the music of “cholo culture” is popular beyond the negative stigma and stereotypes. In this episode Luis, Xris, and Jorge discuss what cholo culture means from a “Utahno” perspective. https://www.artesmexut.org/part19

Artistic expression has remained central to exploring and defining the Chicano identity since the beginnings of the Chicano Movement of the late 1960s. In many ways, being Chicano is about standing up for social equality, resisting discrimination, honoring one's Latino/a and indigenous heritage, and defying negative portrayals of Mexican-American culture. In this episode we explore what it means to be Chicano, and the work of the Asco art collective of the 1970s. https://www.artesmexut.org/part18

The Tlatelolco Massacre that occurred just before Mexico City hosted the 1968 Olympic Games was part of the Mexican government's so-called “Dirty War.” The event helped to trigger new forms of political art and artistic expressionism in Mexico that vented the frustrations of the surviving generation. While there were some government efforts to reconcile what happened only decades later, the seemingly never-ending injustices in the following decades fomented distrust and mass migration by Mexicans seeking better lives in the U.S. and elsewhere. https://www.artesmexut.org/part17

The post WWII period – also coined “the Mexican Miracle” – was a prosperous time for some Mexicans, but not for everyone. While urban Mexicans enjoyed new affluence and growth, farmers and indigenous peoples struggled to make ends meet. But this cultural renaissance didn’t last long before young Mexicans challenged older norms and ideas about artistic expression and politics. https://www.artesmexut.org/part16

In 1932, David Siqueiros was asked to paint a romantic vision of Mexico on a wall in Los Angeles. He instead flipped the metaphorical bird at American imperialism and its history of subjugating indigenous peoples. That ultimately got him deported, and his mural was whitewashed from public view - until recently. The reemergence of América Tropical, and Siqueiros' work more generally, offers observers a chance to consider alternative narratives that challenge the official history. And while some murals today still draw controversy or get covered up, public murals remain powerful platforms for offering passersby different ways of seeing the world. https://www.artesmexut.org/part15

Mexican Muralist Diego Rivera’s most controversial painting was first commissioned by, and later destroyed by the Rockefellers in New York City in the early 1930s. Prominent American capitalists could not tolerate Rivera’s audacious and highly-political effort to immortalize renowned Communists as part of his ambitious project. Nonetheless, Rivera helped to legitimize muralism as an important artform in the U.S. during the Great Depression era. Many WPA murals celebrating American ingenuity and culture can still be seen today. https://www.artesmexut.org/part14

The Mexican Mural Movement inspired Diego Rivera to paint epic frescoes of the world as he saw it. He spent countless hours detailing provocative allegories of unjust social and economic inequities he saw and deplored in Mexico. As he tackled the task of painting his beloved country’s thorny history, his Communist beliefs and his womanizing stirred controversy. Yet, to capture a country’s entire history, the glorious and the shameful alike, in a single mural was a feat few other artists could have achieved. https://www.artesmexut.org/part13

The Mexican Muralist Movement began as an effort to unite Mexico after the divisive Revolution and create a new national identity. One of the most notable muralists was José Clemente Orozco whose paintings were vivid and intense. He sought to show the horrors of the fighting, and the sacrifices Mexicans made for a new country. https://www.artesmexut.org/part12

The Mexican Revolution was complicated, confusing and tragic. The fighting began when the 35-year-long regime of Porfirio Díaz failed to reach a solution for presidential succession. This political crisis gave rise to an uprising among poor indigenous farmers and competing elites. The nearly decade-long civil war involved American citizens more than many people realize. The Revolution inspired generations of artists who worked in different mediums to articulate the significance of the conflict. https://www.artesmexut.org/part11

Mexican people and their indigenous ancestors have, more than a few times in history, been made to feel like foreigners in their own land. It happened to the Aztecs. It happened to the Kickapoo. And it’s happening now to Dreamers. In this episode we examine this common experience, and how it can illuminate the divisive immigration debate that stems from, in many ways, a failure of many Americans to identify with their own immigrant stories. https://www.artesmexut.org/part10

Cinco de Mayo is often misunderstood by Americans as Mexico’s 4th of July or Independence Day. It’s not. In fact, Cinco de Mayo might be a bigger deal in the U.S. than it is in Mexico. https://www.artesmexut.org/part9

Mexico and the United States tend to remember their 1847 conflict, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo very differently. More than 500 thousand square miles of land - which became California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming - became American property. To this day, generally speaking, Mexicans still consider the land unjustly stolen. On the other hand, many Americans still might claim the land was righteously obtained. While art was a powerful tool for convincing American people that conquering the frontier and claiming Mexico's territory was America's divine destiny, art remains an important means for remembering the conflict for both sides. https://www.artesmexut.org/part8

Every country has its own origin story. Mexico is no different. Just as the United States was born from a war for independence from Great Britain, Mexico, or “New Spain,” also fought and won (sort of), its own war for independence from Spain. This episode explores how Mexican artists Juan O’Gorman and Román Sagredo captured key moments of Mexico's fight for independence. https://www.artesmexut.org/part7

The Caste system that the Spanish imposed centuries ago still influences Mexicans today. Images of skin color have always mattered. While the "Las Castas" paintings were intended to create social order, the appearance of the Virgin Mary with brown skin helped the Europeans to control indigenous people and convert them to Catholicism. Nonetheless, modern images and art remind us of how Mexican people still grapple with a hurtful legacy of racist ideals and social inequality. https://www.artesmexut.org/part6

Mexican people today still grapple with the fusion of cultures that resulted from the Spanish Conquest. While the storied romance between Cortez and Malinche, the Aztec woman who served as the Spanish General's translator and lover, remains controversial, many Mexican artists have explored the violent and emotional interpenetration of the Europeans and indigenous in vivid ways. https://www.artesmexut.org/part5

The Spanish arrival in Mexico forever shaped what Mexico would become, and who Mexican people are. Diego Rivera famously tried to summarize the conquest in a single mural. He portrayed a brutal European power that spread disease, enslaved the indigenous people, but who also gave birth to a new race of people. https://www.artesmexut.org/part4

The ancient Aztec idol Coatlicue was buried by the Spanish conquerors, only to be later discovered, but reburied, and later recovered again. Why? Was it because she was so mysterious and terrifying? Possibly. Yet, today the Aztec goddess represents a profound combination of feminism and power. https://www.artesmexut.org/part3

The Aztec people who built the ancient city of Tenochtitlan – now Mexico City – proved themselves a highly competent and advanced civilization. Diego Rivera’s mural that imagines the ancient city at its peak, evokes wonder and pride by Mexican people about who the Aztecs were, and what else they could have achieved. https://www.artesmexut.org/part2

Early Mesoamerican cultures like the Mayans, the Olmecs, and later the Aztecs remain shrouded in mystery. The Spanish who arrived in the 1500's apparently tried their best to bury and erase these mysteries further. But what’s been discovered indicates they were highly advanced civilizations that were intensely engaged with the cosmos and their living environment. They believed certain actions, like bloodletting or human sacrifice, could advance their world. But were their human sacrifice practices really any more strange or barbaric than other traditional notions of sacrifice? https://www.artesmexut.org/part1

This is a podcast about Mexico, and its art and its history. If you give it a chance, it's going to take you places you didn’t expect. It will change you. It is going to make you to question the history we’ve been taught about ourselves as Americans. And it’s going to challenge the history you think you may know about Mexico – if you know anything about Mexico’s history already. https://www.artesmexut.org/prologue