assignment 5C

MOOLAA stands for the Musuem of Latin American Art. MOOLA is located in Long Beach, California founded in November 1996 by Dr. Robert Gumbier. It is the only musuem in the western United States that exclusively features contemporary Latin American art. The mission of MOOLAA is to educated the public about contemporary Latin American fine art through the presentation of collections, exhibitions, culture, and educational programs.

My research of the Freire, colonial era and indepedence era of Latin America, The Virgin of Guadualupe, and La Manlinche has help understand the artwork at MOOLA more clearly now because I now get a feel and can connect with the message the artist is trying to send through their work. Like the saying goes a pictures speaks a thousand words and with the artwork found at MOOLA that stetement is very true. Every detail in their artwork from shapes, colors, and images have some type of significant meaning or representation. Also in the artwork after doing the research you see where some of the work is inspired from in their past history.

The photo I choose was by Brooke Alfaro called The Body. A link to the picture is provided here http://www.bombsite.com/images/attachments/0000/5767/alfaro02_body.jpg. This photo provides insight to how women are forced to be with these rich and powerful men. In my research I came across many times women who where forced to be with older men because they were poor and wanted a better living. Some of the women had no choice.

Observation: In this photo I see a large man which to me represents someone who is a leader rich and his young girlfriend. In most Latin American countries people of power or wealth have beautiful young women as their wife or girlfriend.

Intepretaion: This photo represents how beautiful young woman are forced to be with older powerful and rich men against their own free will.

Judgement: I choose this artwork because I felt it showed clearly how women in Latin America were oppressed by these weatlhy and powerful men. I feel this way because the picture shows a very large man sleeping and woman with a sad look on her face sitting on her knee. She actually looks like she does not want to be there.

Questioning: Brooke Alfaro's The Body shows how women are forced against their will by these disgusting men who thave power and wealth that think they can just do whatever they want. I wonder why people are like that to where they can just force someone against there own free will. What is their thought process?

Assignment 5B

The image I came across was an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. A link to the image is http://www.ourladyofguadalupe.org/ologimage.htm. This is the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I found this image while searching for information on Our Lady of Guadalupe for assignment 5a. This image has to do with humanties because people all over Latin America are fatihfully devoted to her. She is a cultural icon.
The image is a Aztec pictograph. The Lady stood in front of the sun which meant she was greater than the Aztec sun-god of war. Her foot rested on the crescent moon which the aztecs took as her crushing the featherd serpent moon-god. She was a queen because the blue green colors where colors of royalty. Her God was Jesus Christ because of the black cross on the brooch at her neck. She was also the mother of God because the flower petals on her womb symbolized life. Our Lady of Guadalupe was also seen as the Queen of Earth because she wore a contour map of Mexico that was rose colored. The garment she wore told the Indians where the apparition took place.
This artwork to me is a symbol of not just for Mexico but Latin America because so many people in Latin America are devoted to her. I choose this artwork because it is truly an amazing pictograph which wasn't drawn or painted but mysteriously appeared on the cloak of Saint Juan Diego. One thing I would like to know is how exactly her image appeared on his cloak without someone painting or drawing . This is just one of many Catholic mysteries.

Assignment 5A

 Haiti was the first Carribean nation to gain independence from the European powers in 1971. The Hatian Revolution under the leadership of Toussaint l'Ouverture established Haiti as a free republic by 1804. In 1844 the Dominican Republic declared independence from Haiti. Some of the other Carribean nations gained independence from Europe in the nineteenth century and some smaller states are still dependencies of Europe today. Between 1958 adn 1962 British controlled Carribean became the West Indies Federation before they seperated into many smaller nations.

4. I choose the topic of the Virgin of Guadalupe because I am fasicanted by any subject that is on religon.

5. The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is often seen as a coded image. At times her image is described as teh Woman of the Apocalypse because her image shows she is arrayed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. Others say her images represents the Immaculate Conception. There are many interpretations to her image. The blue green mantle is said to be the color once resereved for the divine couple Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, her belt is intepreted as a sign of pregnancy, and the cross shapred image symbolizes the cosmos.

The Virgin of Guadalupe is a Symbol of Mexico. She has been a symbol of Mexico since Mexico's War of Independence. Her first major nationalistic symbol came in the writing of Miguel Sanchez the author of the first Spanish apparition account identified Guadalupe as the Woman of the Apocalypse and stated "this New World has been won and conquered by the hand of the Virgin Mary...[who had] prepared, disposed, and contrived her exquisite likeness in this her Mexican land, which was conquered for such a glorious purpose, won that there should appear so Mexican an image". Guadalupe's feast day which is December 12 was inscribed into the Chilpancingo constitution and was made the seal of the Congress of Chilpancingo by a priest named Jose Morelos who took over the revolution when Miguel Hidalgo died.

The Virgin of Guadalupe is the patron of Spain. On May 25, 1754 Pope Benedict XIV declared her as the patron of Spain. In 1910 Pope Saint Pius X proclaimed her patron of Latin America and later in 1935 by Pope Pius XI she was proclaimed principal patron of the Philippines. All cross Latin America and even in the Philippines you can find people that are deeply devoted to the Virgin of Guadalupe. On July 31 2002 she was named patron of Americas by Pope John Paul II.


6. The sources used are wikipedia and google. These sources are credible because a lot of students use these sites for research. Also wikipedia has a lot of facts which could be verified through google search.

Assignemt 4C

While researching the word "culture" I came up with a few definitions:

*Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving.
*Culture is the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people.
*Culture is communication, communication is culture.
*Culture in its broadest sense is cultivated behavior; that is the totality of a person's learned, accumulated experience which is socially transmitted, or more briefly, behavior through social learning.
*A culture is a way of life of a group of people--the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next.
*Culture is symbolic communication. Some of its symbols include a group's skills, knowledge, attitudes, values, and motives. The meanings of the symbols are learned and deliberately perpetuated in a society through its institutions.
*Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional ideas and especially their attached values; culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other hand, as conditioning influences upon further action.
*Culture is the sum of total of the learned behavior of a group of people that are generally considered to be the tradition of that people and are transmitted from generation to generation.
*Culture is a collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another.

I gathered my resources from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture and http://www.tamu.edu/classes/cosc/choudhury/culture.html

I believe that the world culture ties into everything that we have learned. Learning about Paulo Friere as well as all arts and cultures about Latin America and learning the differentiations between the incas, myas, and aztecs all have to do with culture, we learned about their lifestyles, their artwork, their beliefs, which all ties into culture.

Project 3A Adam J Chaffee:
Adam did a great job i learned alot about the myans especially that Mayans had a very advanced hieroglyphic writing system similar to the Egyptians. Many of the recovered texts have been unreadable, but today most of the remaining writings have been translated. Not all the Mayan people were literate, and many artifacts have been discovered that are almost written in complete gibberish. The Mayan written language is the only known language shared by a community in the pre Columbian period

Project 4A Brittany Hardison:
Brittany did a really wonderful job on this assigment she did the same artwork i did which is La Malinche. We both thought it was interesting to learn about a female role model although we learned the same things, she made a good point that i didnt get a chance to read therefore i learned that The house that La Malinche lived in over 500 years ago still stands in the neighborhood of Coyoacan. The house is presently occupied by a couple who are both prominent artists and they use the house as their studio. The couple would like to turn the house into a museum in an effort to conserve Mexican history. This may not be possible because of the resentment still felt towards La Malinche by the people of Mexico.

assignment 4B

This photo is of Cortes and La Malinche. The link to the photo is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cortez_%26_La_Malinche.jpg.

The photo shows Cortes and La Malinche negiotating with the Aztecs. It is a known fact that La Malinche was an interpretor for Cortes during his talks with the Aztecs. The artwork depicts La Malinche intepretaing for Cortes. Also in the photo it seems the artist included the child of Cortes and La Malinche who is considered the first Mexican beause of his Spanish and Indian mixed blood. La Malinche was not only Cortes intepretor but also his mistress. The artist does not use much color which to me represents the New World that Cortes wanted to conquer and develop. I choose this artwork because I feel it provides a good depiction of how important La Malinche was to Cortes during his conquest. If you read enough about La Malinche this is the perfect picture that would come to mind to what La Malinche was all about. One thing about this artwork I'm curious about is what the animals are suppose to represent. In doing my research on La Malinche not one time did I come across anything significant about those animals.

The questions I have for this artwork, is what do the animals represent as well as how did the artist decide to choose the more earthy tones over the more colorful tones.

Assignment 4A

The Colonial period of Latin America was from 1492-1810. It was considered as being the era that did the most to shape out Latin America today. During that era the native population was wiped out. The natives where wiped out by a combination of the Spanish conquistadors and natural dieases, but mostly from new diseases to which their natural defenses could not defend against. Under the Spanish rule native religion and culture was banned.The Spanish system granted encomiendas which allowed certain tracts of land and everyone on it to be exploitated. Basically the locals on the land became slaves to the Spanish. Most of the power structures in Latin America were destroyed when the Spanish took over. The Spanish take over basically re wrote Latin America's history since they destroyed and exploited most of the natives and their culture.

I choose the topic of La Malinche beacause after watching the videos on youtube and reading about her on mexcoonect.com I found that she was an unsung hero of Mexico who is at times downplayed by the Mexican male historians. She was very interesting and I wanted to learn more about her.

La Malinche's real name is Dona Marina. She was named La Malinche by the Indians due her being the voice of New Spain conquerer Hernando Cortes. Cortes was always called Malinche which means Captain and since Marina had a close relationship to Cortes she was called La Malinche which stood for Captain's Woman. Anytime she spoke the Indians would recongize her as words coming from the Captain himself.

La Malinches has had injustice done to her because historians do not credit her for saving the lives of thousands of Indians by enabling Cortes to negotiate and not go to major war with all who opposed him. The fact she was able to get Cortes to negoitate rather than go to war was evidence enough Cortes was not out to destroy the Aztecs. The discredit and belittelement of La Malinche in Mexico history comes from mostly male historians.

To Hernando Cortes La Malinche was his interpreter,confidant, and mistress. It was said she and Cortes had a child together. Their child's name was Matin Cortes and he was the first Mexican, a mixture of Spanish and Indian blood. La Malinche role as an intepreter was an important role because it allowed Cortes to coomunicate with the Aztecs during his conquest. That also allowed for negiotations between Cortes and the Aztecs.

Two sources of my work is from youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQU4CXqrbDs&feature=related and also http://www.mexconnect.com/en/articles/670-la-malinche-unrecognized-heroine. These two sources are credible because the information is based of actual facts from authors who were supposedly eye-wtinesses to La Malinche.

assignment 3C

Matthew McDonald Summarizes the wonderful achievement Freire made by teaching humble but hard working people how to read. He gave these people the opportunity to speak up by voting. He talks about the fact that Freire taught 300 people how to read and write and touched on how important it is to be able to be literate. He mentions a few key abilities that come from being literate, such as, voting.