This month’s field trip was out to the Latino Center of Art + Culture here in Sacramento. As with any great art or cultural gem, the center is warehouse space tucked away by the freeway, between a petroleum production factory and a marina. There are sounds of horses whinnying in the mixed use lot. You know you’re in the right place when you spot the papel picados (an artistic technique passed down from the Aztecs) covering the building and the replica zócalos within the gates.
Walk in mid-day to a community space and you get to meet the artists. Ruben welcomes me, he built the Oaxacan square in the outdoor courtyard and has a studio for his artists’ corps in the back. The exhibit I’m here to see is called “What You Give”, which features 6 Sacramento artists on the theme of Chicanismo, an ideology that puts emphasis on culture, identity, community, and education.
One of the pieces that stops me immediately is this t-shirt…
ARTIST: Edgar Raul Lampkin Jr “Xincanx” Silkscreen on canvas 2023
Xicanx, not Latinx, we are not “Latin”
not Hispanic GTFO with that eurocentric shit
We can be gender inclusive without erasing our indigenous roots or assimilating into settler culture
Xicanx - descendants of Mesoamerica living on Anglo occupied lands who have created our own identity to counter oppressive structures through liberatory social {unclear}
I remember learning about the differences between identities of Hispanic, Mexican American, Chicano, Latino, Latin@, Latinx, etc. and the constant expansion and connotations of the language we use for who we are. How limiting they can feel when we’re trying to represent the human experience. How constricting it feels when the government would like to group us by the language(s) we speak, or the gender we were assigned at birth, where our ancestors came from or our proximity to Europe (Middle Eastern…Middle East to what? according to whose perspective?)
This painting by Manuel Fernando Rios, entitled “Can’t See My Reflection” has imagery of appropriated or caricatured Mexican culture in the form of Speedy Gonzalez (with a deliberate misspelling of “arriba”?) and the Taco Bell logo. To me, it says that we’ve taken elements of the artist’s culture and turned them into mainstream reductive capitalism, leaving him screaming to be heard and seen, for his culture to be reflected in the world around him.
Elyse Doyle-Martinez brings “Healing the Warriors”, which is an incredibly moving piece of a healer releasing a wild bird into the sunrise. She seems to be mid-sentence on a song or prayer as she releases the bird, and I wonder what she’s chosen to focus on, given all the ways we need healing at the moment.
Another piece by Doyle-Martinez, “Semillas Guerrerxs” is equally striking and youth-focused. It states:
We never question the plant,
we never punish the plant for not growing
we always change the conditions in which it is growing
If we want to address violence in our community, we have to look to the social conditions that our young people are growing in and change them.
I spend a little more time in the gallery before heading out to the courtyard, which hosts tons of community events and festivals. I wave goodbye to Ruben and head back, filling a little more whole and a lot more connected.