Wednesday, September 25, 2019 // The Statement
6B
“The strokes
and lines of the
‘Detroit Industry
Murals’ also told a
story I felt deeply
connected to. They
told a story of
opportunity and
transformation, one
of a hopeful future
and of a harmonious
relationship
between tradition,
identity and
respect.”
From Page 5B
nature and industry. The North Wall of
Rivera Court looked to me like a hopeful
depiction for humanity, one that connects
nature to innovation and sees technology as
a possible equalizer and an extension of the
human brain, and therefore nature.
During the hours I spent looking at each
stroke and inspecting each figure, I saw
themes of nature, diversity and growth
contrasted by images of technology and
innovation. I saw human beings using
their intellect to create good and evil. I
saw snakelike machines that wove through
assembly lines of bleary-eyed men working
mindlessly next to small frescoes of cells
and doctors working on vaccinations.
I saw everyone working together and
creating technology for the advancement of
mankind.
Each panel told a different story, and
together they created a more holistic view
of Rivera’s ideas of American industry and
society.
Unlike Kahlo in her “Self Portrait Along
the Border Line Between Mexico and the
United States,” Rivera seemed to have a
more open-ended perspective of what he
observed in Detroit, the pinnacle American
industry at the time.
He did not think the cultures lived
separated by a definitive line, nor that a
choice needed to be made between them.
Rather, he used his Mexican eyes to see an
American thing, as he saw the innovation
and technology as natural and ground
breaking.
This made me reconsider my own
opinions about my time in the United
States. The strokes and lines of the “Detroit
Industry Murals” also told a story I felt
deeply connected to. They told a story
of opportunity and transformation, one
of a hopeful future and of a harmonious
relationship between tradition, identity and
respect.
After all, I found a way to make gringo
culture my own. I found a way to keep my
Mexican identity and lifelong traditions,
while also respecting my new environment
and expecting respect back. I am constantly
redrawing and repainting my furnace and
the conveyor belts that connect my life,
personality and culture to American society.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I started
forging my gringo experience my first day in
the United States.
I made friends with people who were
like me, who were bilingual and who were
also trying to strike a balance between two
identities. People who did not always feel
respected or valued by gringo culture, but,
like me, were finding ways to demand it.
I started rebelling against the idea of
having to chose a culture and inserted pieces
of my childhood, Mexican traditions into
American ones. I started connecting with
my parents more and realized that there is
no right or wrong way to “be Mexican.” I
realized that I just had to be myself, and that
whoever I became would just be Mexican.
This constant innovation allowed me to
keep the aspects of gringo culture that I
liked, and discard most of those that did not
make me feel like myself. Most importantly,
it allowed me to expand and redraw myself.
Gringolandia
has
pushed
me
to
continuously open myself up to new
experiences and people. While working on
my “success” as defined by the American
code (read high paying job in a competitive
field), I also realized I have the agency
to accept and discard each part of gringo
culture that I do and don’t like.
The American norms of acceptability are
the same, but it is me who has changed. I
am no longer trying to prove that I belong,
because I don’t want to be an obedient
member of American society. I moved here
to expand and redraw myself, and one of
the privileges that came with moving to the
United States is the added perspective that it
gave me. I can see its traditions from a third-
person point of view and decide which ones
I want to incorporate into my version of
gringo culture.
Whenever I meet someone new, I tell
them that my being here at all is a miracle.
I never imagined myself as a student of any
university in the United States, much less
one like U-M. I never thought I would have
platforms to express my individuality, much
less think of myself as an individual with as
much agency as I currently possess.
I think this is why I was so drawn to the
“Detroit Industry Murals.” Rivera crafted a
hybrid culture in his frescoes. He used his
Mexican perspective to paint an American
institution, and he didn’t solely focus on its
drawbacks.