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Published on Leave a comment on Response Paper 2: Mestizaje and representations of the Mexican revolution and Mexican art and Azuela’s “The Underdogs”

“Mestizaje” is the spanish word for miscegenation, meaning “mixed race”. In the essay “The Race Problem in Latin America” José Vasconcelos is very right about people of mixed race being the “bridge to the future” (Vasconcelos 97) for Latin America. He explains this by saying that a person of mixed race isn’t fully accepted by either of his parents’ races. By not being able to turn to the past for acceptance, he is forced to look forward—to the future.

Orozco’s mural Cortez and the Cross depicts the violence between the Spanish and the indigenous peoples when Cortes came over from Spain.

In the mural, behind Cortes there are burning ships. These are the ships Cortes and his men sailed over to Mexico with. He told his men to burn the ships to show them that they were not returning to Spain—that they would fight, conquer, and stay in Mexico. There is much history of conflict between the Spanish and the Indigenous peoples of Mexico because of Spain sailing to overseas Mexico and reaping all that the Indigenous peoples had. This is why it was so hard for a person of mestizo culture to be accepted by either of the races they come from. In the mural Cortez and the Cross, the pain and suffering of the Indigenous peoples is depicted by the fire in the background, the sombre colours (other than the red fire), the heap of bodies slumped in the bottom right corner, the destruction of objects strewn all over the artwork, and Cortes’s sword unsheathed, ready for battle.

The novel The Underdogs written by Mariano Azuela begins with a quote from Saint-Just, the French revolutionary. It states “Revolutions begin fighting tyranny and end fighting themselves” (Fuentes 1). The Mexican Revolution begins with commoners fighting and trying to overthrow the Dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz. His rule came to an end in 1911, where democratic leader Francisco Maderno came to power. Overthrown and murdered by general Victoriano Huerta, dictatorship was promptly restored. This dictatorship was opposed and eventually overthrown in 1925 by the joint efforts of Venustiano Carranza, Alvaro Obregón, and Francisco “Pancho” Villa in the north and Emiliano Zapata in the south. The mestizos are the people who rose up against the old ways of Spanish colonial rule, a feudal-like system called la encomienda. By this time most of the Mexican people were mestizo and they were the commoners who fought for the commoners. People of mestizo culture were  taking action for their future.

The Orozco mural Cortez and the Cross depicts the violence between the Indigenous peoples and the Spanish people. It shows their struggle over history. The novel by Mariano Azuela and the essay by José Vasconcelos both agree that mestizo people were the “bridge to the future” (Vasconcelos 97) for Mexico, because of their inability to live in the past and their hopes for the future.

Works Cited

"Hernán Cortés." Biography.com. A&E Networks Television, 08 July 2014. Web. 07 Feb.             2017.

"Mestizaje and Indigenous Identities." Mestizaje and Indigenous Identities. N.p., n.d.               Web. 07 Feb. 2017.

"The Mexican Revolution: November 20th, 1910 | EDSITEment." The Mexican                         Revolution: November 20th, 1910 | EDSITEment. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Feb. 2017.

Published on Leave a comment on Response Paper 1: Orozco Murals at Dartmouth

Having been in the Orozco mural room only once before — and quite briefly — I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I had heard about it but had never taken the time to admire the time and effort José Clemente Orozco had put into these amazing works of art. Seeing the contrast between the ancient world and the modern world was interesting. The panel that left the greatest impact on me was the Gods of the Modern World. I saw it and immediately thought of the phrase “the birth of education” because of the human giving birth to a capped baby on a pile of books. It hadn’t struck me that all of the humans in the panel were skeletons, symbolizing death. I find the irony of skeletons giving birth striking.

Orozco was painting these murals between 1932 and 1934, in the heart of The Great Depression. The flames behind the figures in the back of the mural suggest the political and economic turmoil that was taking place during this time. The robed skeletons are all facing away from the flames and towards the books and the birth giving. This suggests the ignorance of educators toward the issues in contemporary life and instead their focus on their own intellectual world. This is all suggesting useless knowledge. The books at the bottom of the mural are completely black. They look charred. This shows that the intellectual world cannot be separated from the contemporary world and that the fire from the contemporary world still managed to burn the books in the intellectual world. It reveals the unimportance of education while The Great Depression is occurring. When I originally saw this panel I thought “the birth of education”. Now when I see it I think “the death of education”.

The lack of colour contributes to the tone of death in the painting. The little skeletons in the glass jars sitting on the charred books symbolize the forgottoneness of education and those intellectuals who came before. Their positioning in the mural is important; they are with the charred books at the bottom of the mural which signifies the lack of importance of education. The contemporary world is in crisis and in this time of desperation the intellectual world is the least of peoples’ worries. José Clemente Orozco is depicting that when in a time of crisis, it is necessary to focus on the crisis. In the mural, the fire behind the people is going unnoticed, and therefore growing. The people are dead because their lack of care for the rest of the world. Orozco depicts intellectuals as privileged people who don’t care about the world around them. He depicts intellectuals as selfish people but shows that though they may be focused on studies, that will not get them anywhere, hence the skeletons.

After touring the Orozco Mural Room I learned quite a bit about his style and history. I found it very helpful discussing the historical significance of the murals because it gave me them a context which I otherwise may not have figured.