Artist Statement: Mother and Son

Almost every Chicano/a artist at some point in their life makes art that references the revered Mexican icon of La Virgen de Guadalupe. Whether this icon is treated with reverence or as a symbol of the Spanish conquest over the indigenous culture and religion of Mexico, it’s almost an artistic rite of passage for Chicano/a artists to explore their ethnic identity as a strategy for making art.

This seems especially true for Chicano/a artists who appropriate what many Mexicans see as a holy and nationalistic image that should never be used outside of a revered context. Almost by definition the status of identifying as Chicano/a encompasses a challenge to and disconnect from both “American” (meaning US) culture and Mexican culture . . . ni aqui, ni allá.

I grew up with a large oval-shaped lithographic version of the virgin, printed in monochromatic shades of blue, that belonged to my mother’s mother (who died before I was born). The framed oval image, encased in glass, had a votive candle in front of it, always lit, in the corner above my parents’ bed. At night the illuminated image fascinated me. It’s one of the earliest memories I have . . . her folded hands in the flickering candlelight.

The one thing I always felt about the image and the story behind it was that she was a “mystery.” The image itself, on the tilma of Juan Diego, was discussed and debated like the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin.

In my take on the mysterious (and some would say “consummate”) Mexican female image, I’ve replaced the virgin with my mother, Inez. The painting is a secular working-class version of Guadalupe—a portrait of my mother, based on a photo from 1957, when my mom was truly happy. It was taken at Christmastime in Cananea, Sonora, Mexico, on a visit to my paternal grandparents’ home. My mother was newly married, holding her young son, and was at that time essentially successful in the ways she was taught to be a success and achieve happiness and fulfillment as a woman, a mother, and a Catholic.

My mother was a beautiful woman, and while she had some vanity, she was never arrogant or full of herself. She was very gracious and sweet, treated people well, and proudly loved her son. I think that shows in the original black-and-white photo.

Within five years from that moment my parents would go through a difficult divorce, and my mother would suffer a nervous breakdown. She would be diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, hospitalized twice, and subjected to electroshock therapy in the early 1960s, which was the plight of many depressed women at that time. She was never the same afterward, and in a way our roles “reversed,” inasmuch as I sort of became her caregiver and watched over her and my younger sister. When I was ten years old, upon my mother’s “return home” from being institutionalized, my aunts (her sisters) reinforced that with my father no longer around, I was the “man” of the house and had to take care of my mother and sister. I think I did that naturally without having to be told. One thing I challenged my aunts on was their insistence that if I was just “a good boy” and “prayed,” my mother would be well. I remember at twelve years old declaring to my aunt that she was wrong! I was the best little boy I could be, and no matter how much I prayed, my mother was mentally ill and needed to take medication. Prayer had nothing to do with it. If I was to be given the responsibility of taking care of my mother, we needed to be real about what was going on with her.

Breaking up with the only man she ever loved (my father, Salvador), she was also ostracized from the church because of the divorce and had a lifelong battle with depression. When she was “herself,” she was sweet, charming, funny, gracious, loved to laugh, and sometimes in many ways she was my best friend. She worked...