Frida

Still working om catching up! So for day 10 of #InktoberLatinxColectivo2020 challenge, the prompt is FRIDA KAHLO #LatinxInk20

No one can deny the tremendous cultural impact of Frida Kahlo as an artist, as a feminist, and political figure–her history as a Communist is one that has been unfortunately obscured in favor of a more palatable and mainstream figure.

Nevertheless, Frida not only committed cultural appropriation of Zapotec cultural aesthetics, but profited from them greatly. Moreover, much like her husband Diego Rivera, she participated in an art movement that folklorized indigeneity in the service of the Mexican nation-state.

Given that, it’s not hard to imagine that Frida Kahlo today would be predisposed to appropriate Blackness and very much be like a Raquel Dolezal.

And just FYI:

Frida Kahlo was born to Guillermo Kahlo (a German of Hungarian descent who settled in Mexico), and Matilde Calderón y González who was of Spanish and Indigenous descent.

Matilde Calderón y González was born in Oaxaca to Isabel González Gonzáles who was of Spanish descent. Matilde’s father was Antonio Calderón, and he was of indigenous descent… from Morelia Michoacán., which is hundreds of miles away from Oaxaca.

That is to say, if Frida’s only connection to her indigeneity was through her maternal grandfather from whole other part of Mexico, and the only connection that Frida’s mother had to Oaxaca was having been born there, then how exactly did Frida have any entitlement to Zapotec culture?