Midterm topic

For my midterm essay, I'm going to look at two works by the artist Carmen Lomas Garza-- Para la Cena (For Dinner) and Cama Para Sueños (Bed for Dreams). These works grapple the uncertainty and ambiguity felt by young immigrants and first-generation Mexican-Americans as they struggle to bridge the gap between American and Mexican expectations and dreams. They also encapsulate some of the struggle that comes with an early learned knowledge of difference though not necessarily a distinct understanding of what that difference is. In both of these paintings there is a divide between the world of the adults and the world of the youth and there is a felt tension in trying to reconcile the two. I hope to explore issues of bi-culturalism, familial expectations, bilingualism, loneliness, and the inherent difficulty in attempting to forge an individual identity that merges two very distinct national identities.

Cama Para Sueños

 

Para la Cena