Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
19th Eurasian Conference on Language & Social Sciences, Paris, Fransa, 13 - 14 Aralık 2025, ss.9, (Özet Bildiri)
Born in a Latino ghetto (barrio) in San Diego in 1942, intellectual and painter Yolanda M. López has been an influential activist figure within the Chicano Feminist Movement from the mid-1960s until her untimely demise in 2001. The present study offers a socio-cultural analysis of the painter’s most renowned work, Guadalupe Triptych (1978), consisting of a series of paintings that offer an alternative and controversial re-evaluation of the most potent religious icon throughout the entire Latin America, namely the Virgin of Guadalupe. Collectively, Lopez’s three separate but interrelated paintings (oil pastel and paint on paper, 76x56cm), titled respectively “Victoria F. Franco: Our Lady of Guadalupe,” “Margaret F. Stewart: Our Lady of Guadalupe” and “Portrait of the Artist as the Virgin of Guadalupe,” offer a resistive measure against the age-old patriarchal discourse endemic to the Latin American ethos. Taking her cue form the traditional iconography of the Virgin of Guadalupe, who is believed by millions to be the reincarnate of Virgin Mary, thus venerated as the patroness of Latin-America, specifically that of Mexico, the artist has created resistive and active role models in a culture that often expects women to strictly bear the qualities associated with the Virgin such as submissiveness, passivity, purity, and obedience. Utilizing the images of herself, her mother and grandmother posed within the conventional Virgin iconography, the artist foregrounds the working class struggles and the generational fortitude that indeed define Mexican-American communities. In the first installment, “Victoria F. Franco,” López re-creates her brown-skinned grandmother in her pink dress, sitting modestly but playfully on a stool covered with the Virgin’s venerated cloak, with the background of a heavenly bluish color. Next, in “Margaret F. Stewart” she portrays her mother, behind the sewing machine, making the Virgin’s cloak as she re-creates the Virgin through her working class sensibilities. Lastly, in “Portrait of the Artist,” she herself becomes a young athletic woman with running shoes, probably a long-distance runner, representing the independence and strength of all Chicanas defiant to cultural constraints.
The present study foregrounds López’s conscious choice of these women from three different generations, challenging the traditional view of the Guadalupe image, and becoming active agents and independent individuals who are not hindered by patriarchy. On the contrary, the artist’s deconstruction transforms the symbol in an effort to celebrate the autonomous choices, offereing an alternative pathway in their self-conscious effort to recreate Latin American womanhood.
Keywords: Chicana Feminism, Art, Deconstruction, Activism, Rewriting.