Veneration and violence: Pedagogical forces in chicana literature and visual art

The seeds of my ongoing engagements with matters of cultural production and social change are rooted in my growing-up years, experiencing violence and Catholicism in a Mexican American family. My father was the son of Mexican immigrants who had come to the United States to work in agriculture as field laborers and stayed to better their family’s future. My mother was the daughter of poor whites who had moved into the heart of the California desert, living the hardscrabble life of those who had migrated west during the dustbowl era. Neither ever spoke in detail about their family histories. Both turned to the church to guide and direct them through their frustrations and struggles. Economic pressures always took center stage and were made to stand in for other tensions that merged together and exploded.