Questions for 4/13

The following are my questions for discussion:

1. What do you think of the Mexican celebration of death, and how can it affects their society? It seems to me that it can be a healthy, beneficial, and unifying celebration that be a useful way to help people face their grief and bring communities together.

2. Chicana art, as seen in Amelia Mesa-Baines' article and Laura Perez' "Ofrenda", is one of the most significant if not the most significant drivers of Chicana feminism and activism. Why do you think art is such an important an effective form of communication for Chicana feminism?

3. Mesa-Baines describes art in relation to healing: "making, seeing, or participation of any form with art is akin to making yourself well" (37:21). I personally agree with and experience this in my own life, how do you think this healing aspect of art can work with social justice movements to bring people together and strengthen their causes?

4. Perez mentioned the words "art" and "spritual" being problematic words: "The definitions of ‘‘art’’ and ‘‘artist’’ are understood to be problematic, nonuniversal terms, insofar as their European-language variations evolved within Western cultural histories...‘‘spiritual’’ is meant only to indicate the system of beliefs, institutionalized or not, about the nonmaterial component of human nature and/or the natural world that may encompass what in the Westernized world we describe as the divine" (Perez 7). Have you guys had any experiences, whether in study or real life, of this being the case? I'm curious because most terms that we have read about as being biased and racist I have totally understood and agreed with, but I've always seen art and spiritual as all-encompassing, non-excluding terms.