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.

