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Goldman

27

WORKING WOMEN

Mexican and Chicano women have always been part of the working force, even within the pre-capitalist family when it was the basic economic unit that produced material goods and services. In later periods, women worked outside the family for wages. However - with the exception of documentary photography and film - they are insufficiently depicted in their roles as workers, even by Chicano artists. Until the mid-seventies, Chicano art was largely dominated by men. Through some were sensitive to women's issues, the images that emerged predominately depicted them as wives and helpmates, earth mothers, Indian princesses, pre-Columbian and Catholic goddesses, sex symbols, and, occasionally, as betrayers like La Malinche, the Indian mistress of Hernán Cortés in the 16th century. As a more pervasive feminist consciousness developed and greater numbers of Chicanas became visible as artists, new concepts emerged in the work of both women and men. The "individual-cult" of Frida Kahlo in the United States, which had the unfortunate side effect of separating her from Mexican history and other women artists of her time, resulted in many artistic homages which, on the positive side, provided an admired model for Chicana artists, albeit in an introspective direction. Heroines from the Mexican Revolution (specifically "La Adelita") and from other Latin American revolutions made an appearance, though not in any quantity. In group scenes of workers, women might be part of a crowd, but the active employed woman or the labor leader rarely appeared. I was recently made acutely aware of this when seeking a painting or print of Delores Huerta, Vice President of the United Farm Workers. Multiple images of César Chávez were available in murals, easel paintings and prints, but none of Huerta.

In the Spanish colonial period from 1600 to 1800, women in northern New Spain (now the U.S. Southwest) worked as tanners, weavers, seamstresses, and gardeners.