Cholas I (con Zapata y Villa), White Fence, East L.A.

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Cholas I (con Zapata y Villa), White Fence, East L.A.

1986, printed 2024

Graciela Iturbide

(Mexican, b. 1942)

Culture

Mexico

Medium

gelatin silver print

Measurements

Image: 61 x 50.8 cm (24 x 20 in.)

Credit Line

L. E. Holden Fund 2024.146

This artwork is known to be under copyright.

Location

Not on view

Did You Know?

According to Iturbide, the women in Cholas I (con Zapata y Villa), White Fence, East L.A. claimed not to know the identity of the painted figures behind them, telling her that Zapata, Villa, and Juárez were “mariachi singers.”

Description

Four women pose in their East Los Angeles neighborhood in front of a wall bearing the painted portraits of the Mexican icons Emiliano Zapata, Pancho Villa, and Benito Juárez. From Graciela Iturbide’s description of this series, we know that the women are hearing-impaired, a factor that complicates the meaning of their hand gestures, reading as both sign language and gang signs. The women were members of White Fence, a Mexican-heritage gang based in East Los Angeles that was formed in the 1920s and whose history is highly politicized. Deeply shaped by their Mexican heritage, yet part of their own unique community in LA, their portraits exemplify the complex layers of personal identities in the borderlands.