Nepantla

This is Tony Ortega

The precolonial background designs reveal a timeline from the past to the present. The juxtaposing of the Cholo, a hip, street smart, warrior on the left, and the Adelita, a Mexican female revolutionary on the right, reveal the intersection of time periods in history that include the pre-Columbian, colonial, Mexican revolution, and present. The Cholo has his sleeves rolled up and is ready to go to work; the Adelita has a rifle at her side. They are both ready to battle for cultural preservation, historical acknowledgment, and social justice. The woodcut becomes part of the continued evolution of self-determination for those who have been marginalized.

“Nepantla is a Nahuatl (Aztec language) term which describes being in the middle or the space in the middle. The central figures exist in Nepantla. They physically, emotionally, and spiritually live between the clash of two cultures, one Mexican and one American. They must cross a border---not the actual Mexican and U.S. border but the subsequent cultural values that exists between these two countries. Here in the Aztlán (American Southwest), the northern outpost of Latin America, lays their journey from south to north. They must deal with a dominant culture whose history is from east to west. In their passage, they must think from Spanish to English, community to capitalism, family to individuality, and back again.

The woodcut “Nepantal” metaphorically focuses on Chicanos/Mexican Americans who feel alienated from the dominant American culture and, as a result, search for their own personal individual meaning. My print asks the viewer, “Who am I in this cultural mix that refuses to recognize me as an individual? Where do I fit? How do I define myself?” And the answer is “somewhere in between.” And that is Nepantla.