Brainstorm #6 - Sarah Yang

Throughout this week’s readings, there is a definite linking factor of Chicana women taking charge of the narrative describing them and reimagining a better world. In “Ceremony of Time”, Partisia Gonzales notes that “understanding the import of ancestral female ceremonial and ritual powers and responsibilities can explain why various ritual knowledges remain robust today or is reconstituted in contemporary cultures” (70). Gonzales weaves a thread, connecting the physical, material, ritual, spiritual, and cultural importance of women in ancestral times to how they are being depicted today in Mesoamerica and Mexico today. One example of the resilience practice technologies that she describes is how things like traditional braids or shawls can be everyday items as well as sacred items. Michelle Habell-Pallan continues this tapestry by describing how “Chicanafuturism renarrates the past, present, and future of subjects colonized in the borderlands, those who negotiate cultural, ideological, and spiritual mestizaje” (162). By discussing the work that Girl in a Coma has accomplished and what their music means to the broader movement of Chicana feminism, Habell-Pallan states how the future is full of people who fight for the disruption of the racist and sexist ways of our society. Girl in a Coma’s music video “Clumsy Sky” represents covivencia because of the juxtaposition of depictions of more traditional images next to more modern images in order to show harmony and progress in culture. For example, on of the clips that is flashed throughout the video is of an older man, dressed traditionally sharing a beer with a younger man with a mohawk. The music video also depicts love and passion, with people partying together and holding hands. The video is tying together older and newer generations towards a common cause.