• Hooks, Bell. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. Routledge, 2015. 
  • Hooks recognizes that race, gender, sexual identity, class, etc. are all interconnected. If we ignore their intersectionality, we create oppression towards certain groups of people. Specifically understanding the oppression women of color face and the importance the solidarity feminist movements create. 
• Hyman, Aaron M. Rubens in Repeat: The Logic of the Copy in Colonial Latin America. Getty Research Institute, 2021.
  • Hyman discusses the duplication and replication of European paintings across Latin America. It was used as propaganda to spread the viralility of the Catholic Church. Colonizers forced indigenous people to replicate European paintings to brainwash their own people.
• Peterson, Jeanette Favrot. “The Virgin of Guadalupe: Symbol of Conquest or Liberation?” Art Journal, vol. 51, no. 4, 1992, pp. 39–47., https://doi.org/10.2307/777283.
  • The story of La Virgen de Guadalupe was made up to convince Aztecan people of Mexico to convert to catholicism. Colonizers did so by allowing the depiction of the Virgen Mary to be a brown woman and have an Aztec name; Tonantzin. That is why now we see so many Mexican people adore her depiction, but they don’t realize it’s a result of colonization and brainwashing. 
• Rabasa José. “Chapter 1: The Nakedness of America? .” Inventing America: Spanish Historiography and the Formation of Eurocentrism, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK, 1993, pp. 23–42.
  • When colonizers arrived in the Americas, they described indigenous people as animal-like and dirty. Colonizers immediately had a sense of superiority over Native people because Native people were living amongst nature. Colonizers intentions were never to just visit, it was always to take someones land.  
• Sifuentes, Aram Han. “How Internalized White Supremacy Manifests for My BIPOC Students in Art School.” Art Journal Open, 8 July 2021, http://artjournal.collegeart.org/?p=15661.
  • I relate a lot to this reading because of my personal experience attending UIUC and UIC. Studying architecture at UIUC, there were no discussions of redlining, colonization, and gentrification. In my Latino Studies classes, white students would get away with racist comments and I was always the one to bring up racism. At UIC we have more open-minded discussions of all these topics, but we are assigned readings from the perspective of the colonizer. 

Inspirations

• Ayon, Belkis. La Cena (The Supper). The Belkis Ayón Estate, Cuba, 1991, FOWLER MUSEUM AT UCLA, California.
  • Ayon depicts her experience growing up in a religious cult through black and white prints.
• Mursell, Ian. “An Image of Citlalicue?” Mexicolore, 2010, https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/ask-us/an-image-of-citlalicue. 
  • Citlālicue is an Aztec goddess, who is the creator of the stars. Ciclali is also my middle name, inspired by Citlālicue–meaning star. 
• Sandstorm. “The Virgin of Guadalupe and Tonantzin.” The Virgin of Guadalupe and Tonantzin, 2011, https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/gods/virgin-of-guadalupe-and-tonantzin. 
  • Tonantzin was a title for the maternal aspect of any Aztec goddess, not the name of a particular goddess. 
• Vicuña, Cecilia. Liderezas (Indigenous Women Leaders). Courtesy the Artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, and London., 2022, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City, New York . 
  • Vicuña depicts indigenous women in this painting. 
• Vicuña, Cecilia. Sueño (Los Indios Matan Al Papa) (Dream [The Indians Kill the Pope]). Courtesy the Artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, and London., 1971, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City, New York . 
  • Vicuña depicts the Pope killing indigenous people in this painting. 
• Wiley, Kehinde. Sleep. The Rubell Museum, Miami, 2008, Rubell Museum, Miami. 
  • Wiley depicts a black man in a sleeping state, similarly to the renaissance paintings we see of Jesus or any white man.