Border Arte Nepanta, el gar dla Fontana he gatekeeper atthe museum rakes our ticket, We enter the simulation the European colonizers de The World ft antepasado His indigens, Here before my eyesis the culture of nest writers oe the impact of ancient Mesa are forms, fos, and custom We consistently eet back these innages in revitalized and modernized nsin theater, lin, perfomance at, painting, dance sculpture, and ‘on. Asa eaple who hive been stripped of our istry. language fading. Jas myself, What does it mam tor me, esta jotta, this gu Chicana, sis i a ook tigen historic tna jects that wete once ued by er ancestors? Will insscultue. and theChicatno kids and explosion, and of puting together the fragments and eeatin The museum, iit is daring and takes risks, can be a kind o hte midle-slss crowd ook at videos, Hite to slide presentations, and heat museum staff ex plain portions of the exhibit. tr angers me tha all these people tak as hough the Azrecsandl dei culture have been desl for hundreds of years nen in fact there are still 1,00 Aztee survivors living in Meco ickets. The warior goddess with bilson hee checks nd serpent bel ills to mind the dominant culkue’s repeated attempts otear the Mevican culture in the U.S. apart and seater te fragments 0 winds. This slick, repackage exhibition costing §3.5 million exen ind warlike energy and Yolanda Lopes's Para ofthe Arista he ign of Caadaupe (1978). which epics Chicana}mexicana woman emerging and unig fom che cal aloof rays withthe mantle ofthe tration vie nntone hand anda serpencin the other, Pvt represents the cultural robin of the Chicana strugy ppressive gender The srugeleand pain ofthis rebirth is als represented eloquent Marsha Gomes in earthworks and stonewan scuptures such as Thisartworks ae pat of my legacy. {remeber visting Chicana tena ais Santa Baeeaza in hee Austin studio inthe mid-19708 and talking abou he merger anid appeopeation of cultural symbols and techni search oftheir spiritual and cultural eoots {walked atound herstuio was amazed a thevivid Virgen de Guadaly ioniography om her walls id drawings strewn on tables and shelves, Ihe thiee “adres,” Guadalupe, La Malinche,yLa Lorna ae culture Figures that Chicana writers and artist re-read” in ur works. An! now, sisteen years later, Batrza is focusing ‘on interpretations of Pre-Columbian cadices a reclamstion a cltral sid es wotos? Using the fol art format, Batra paints tn oti als known as retablos, tational po ‘media intfodaced into context asa mechanism of resistance to oppression nd ass (Once more my eyes return to Coyolaubg, Nope, she's at forse an neither ate the original La Lupe, La Lloons, and La Chingad and their snodern renditions. hatthe Aztecs, their language, andindigenous cultures are stil vers eh wonder about the genesis of clare des fronteta, Barer at 2 ber ts rotssacred and folk ata oten sil one and the sae Il the nichos niches or ecessed ares) and zetablos tar pieces! decently sce in scveelglleries al nase such a Metropolitan State College Ar Museu, The alr pieces ane placed ins pen hones made of wood, tn, of eatdbvard The elas eat'modites, and enriches these imag, snd iti trn, passes them om The rocess is peated until he original meanings of images aze pushed ito "he unconscious, Whae suricesareimages more sigaificanto the preva ingeutureandera. Howover. the atist on some eel stillconnects to that luiconscos reservoir of meaning, connectsto that nepantla state an amtists presently ate engaged in “resting” tht cenote, that nepal, an and la frontera intersect in 2 liminal space where bonder people espevalyartist, vein stateof “nepantla” Nepantlasthe Nahi word foran in-between stare that uncertain teetain one crosses when movin from one place to another. when changing fom one clas, race. o seal Position to another, when traveling From the present identity into 4 ne entity the Mexican immigrant athe moment of crossing the hubed wired fence incoa hostile “paradise” of e ote, the U.S. is caught i Forhousasds in prestigious galleries, as wellasthe once neglected writ svhose work isin every professor's slabs, fora time inhabit nepant Think ofthe Borderlands as forge Ls Borges's Aleph te one spt 08 natives orinsnigrans colored or white, qucersor heterosexuals fon this side ot the border or del otra lado are personas del gat, leal people al of who elae ro the border and the nepal sates indiferearwas Jong tine, thinking about spaces and borders ad anovingin the td hao them. According Eawatl al ea in ite we bec rospace na wav tts tied o survival and sanity. Whetwehecoed 1 from that sense of spac danger af becoming | question this—t0 be disoriented in space is the “noel” waco! hehe acceleatsd pace ofthis comple, interdependent, and multculueal planer To be disoriented in space isto be en nepantl, Ta be disoriented im space to experience bouts of dissociation of inti. identiy beet downs and builds. The border isin a constant nepanta state and isan anslogof theplanet. this iswhy the bordetline sa persistent metaphor in elarte del fiomtera, an arethat deals with such themes of dent, border rossings nd hybrid imagery “Imagenes dela Frontera” was the te Ie Centro Cultural Tijuana’ June 1992 exhibition Malaguias Montoya's Frnt Seis nd Iene Pez’ DoxSundesayonoprin are evamples of the ‘multi-subjectvit:spli-snbjectiviy and refusal-to-be-spi themes ofthe bosderanist eeatng a counter art The nepanta stat isthe natural habitat of ass, most specially for ‘he mestizo border artists who partake ofthe tations of two oF mace worlds and who maybe binatonal. They thus ereate anew artiste space — sordermestizo culture. Beware of el romance del mestizae, I hea self saying silently. Puede seruna fcc. arn myself not toromanticiz just another fiction, something made up ike “ule” or the evens in x person's life, Bue I and other writers of la Rontera There are many obstacles and dangers in crossing into nepal. Border anists ae threatened from the outside by appropriation by popular cul "ure and the dominant art institutions, by “outsiders” jumping on thet bandwagon and working the border artists teritory. Border artists also urethreatened bythe present unparalieled economic depression inthe ats fzuted by government funding cutbacks, Sponsoring corporations that luge projects by “family values” criteria are forcing multicultural artists ‘o hang tough and brave out Financial and professional instability. Bor. der aris becoming trendy in these neo-coloial ines that encourage a nurs and pop culture rip-offs, think, as walkintothe Aztee Museum shop. Feathers, paper lowers, and ceramic statues of fetlity goddesses sel fr ten times what they sel for in Mexico, OFcourse, ther is sathing new about colenizing, commercializing, and consuming te art of ethnic people and of queer writers and artists) except that now eis being mie appropriated by pop culrure. Diversity is being sold on 1v, billboards fashion lines, department store windows, and yes, ieporcortors and regional” stores where you ean take home Navaho artis RC. Gi Saguaro or Robert Arnos Chil Dog, a jae of Tex-Mex picane sauce, and Asoka matgat tat Rosie's Canina "ouch the armadillo pendent hanging Fem my neck and think, foncath, female. and water energies merge. We turrender to the chythat and the grace of our arworks. Though ou reworks we erss the border in nl subjective leves of awareness, shift into different and new terains ‘of mestzae, Some oF us havea highly developed falta and may net what lies ahead, Yet che political climate doesnot allow us to withdraw completely Infact, border acists are engaged artists. Most of us ate po lvcally active in our communities. I disconnected eons a gente, bor atists would wither insolation, The community feeds our spite andthe tion catalog, Myeyes sagged on some lines by hudy Baca, Chicana mal Mexican counterparts from aross the border and with Native Aer: Mesico, anid Canada, Hoth Chicano and border ae challenge an uve the imperialists ofthe US. and combat assimilation by ether the US. Mexico, yet they acknowledge ts atfinities to both Chicana” ait" der atist hese ate adjectives labeling identi. Labeling impacts expectations. Is ~border” ats use another Label that stvps legitimacy eom che arts, signaling that se is inferioe eo the a iectiveles artista label designating that s/he is only capable of handing etn, ok and regional subjets and forms? Yet the dominant culate then spits out the hollows hus along sith its Ibels sch as Hispai the dominant culture shapes the ethnic ats's identity if she does nt Scream loud enough and tight Zong enough re name hers sl. Une vein a society wheteall people are more or les equal and no libels 8 Ihe ways ofa people ther history and culkute pu on paper bet fy leaves. Fan aces ed, be, an lack ink let by thee ers and scholars. The pati hanging bein glas, We, the visers Ine present, walk around and around he lass-boye past {wonder whtered eg ora take public image, one the acti inks will ak ‘he hustling ourdoes the artmaking ‘come to market. the prob len: now is how to resi corporate cultute while asking fr and sceut on the pat ofthe border aris inthe appropriation of herorhisart hy dhe dominant deters of art? Andif so, does thisconstitate sslbimp i imperaison? The impact tht oney and making it has on the ats is. ile explored arca though the effet of lack of money has been well-documented fas evidenced inthe “starving ats” scenario) Aisi ideas that ave been incubating and developing at their cwn speed h at sun at cht supercedes the pictorial tdepietshoth the soul oF the ast ad he soul beyond the traditional self porteait or auto ography: in telling the wrterfats's persnal story, itaso includes the 5° cultural history. The altars [make are not just epresentaions of myself they are representations of Chicana cultre.Elarte de a Fentera iscommunity-andacademicall-based—many Chieana(o art have Mas and PhDs and h \precarious teaching postions onthe ringes of univer sities To make, exhibit, and sll heir artwork, and to survive. los arises band together cllsively Finally, ind myset before the reconsteucted ststue of the newly un ‘arthed el dis murielago, the hat god with his big ear, Fangs. and pro teuing tongue repesenting the vampite bat associated with aight, Blood eritice. and death. I make an instantangous asocition of the bat manith the nepanta stage of borderariss the darkcave of ereativity where hey hang upside dawn, turning the self upside down in order to see fom wnother point view ome that Beings a new state of understanding. 1 wonder what meaning this bat Figute will have fr other Chicanasjo, wha seis symbol they will make of tad what politcal stugte it wl: reson Perhaps like the homepublic tats, which expose both the United States’ and Mesico’s ational identity, the murcilago god questions the ewer’ unconscious collective and personal identity adits tes to herbs rer ae thot is always the specter of death in che back ‘rounds, Ofte las ealavera skeletons and sll) take a prominent pos tion ~ and not just oF el dia de Tos muertos (November and). De La ier nico, rom coeth we are bor, al tera retornamos, 1 eaeth te shall retutn, adarloqge ela nos dis, to give backto her what she has given Yes say to myself, the earth eats the dea, Ia tere se come alos muertos, {alk out ofthe Aztee exhibic hall and rurn in che walkman with the ‘olmos tape eis September 26, mi cumpleaios. seek our the table with the compte, key in my birthdate, and thereon the screen is my Aztec bist year and tual day name: B Rabbi, 12 Skul n har culture t would have heen named Matacti Omome Mizuta, fst forating rubber stamps, press down, pl tout, and stare a he impr the rabbit (symbol of fear and of eunning seated) pitogeaph and thea othe sll (aight, blood saeitie, and death). Very appropriate symbol in my ite, mutters 30 raza. gy que? At the end of my five-hour “tout” | walk out of the museum to packing lot with aching fet and questions Hhing around my head. 81 neti taken occupied bordtland where singe artists and collaborating groups 20 fort space, andthe two home tecitores, Meso and the United States. hecumme one. Bander art cas with shifting identities, Borde crossing and hss, fut there ate oth besides the actual Mesic United States trmters, ls Davila’ Chit ast wh has Loguns, a hal-caste, ved breed transvestite, fui iswhosigas his work as “1 Fisgon), hasa mixed media piece ied Peo soy uy ato ng) shows Mevican malewearing the proverbial nibeeo taking sest against the tational cactus, equa bottle on nportant, but {wis nor born a Tenochikin in the ancient past no in an stoevillage in modern times. was horn and vein thatin- between space cultures thar my body lives it and out of and awhite man who constant186 ant ac “Middle” Weng Roberts H. Markman and Pete Markman, es, Mast of St vere produced inthe ilscren Stdis of elt Help Graphies, Los Anges andi Teresa MeKenna, and ronnie Yabro-Bejaano (Los angels: Wig At Galler