For this week’s project, I thought
about all of the things that have influenced me through the years. While there
were many things to consider, I landed on a juxtaposition that has fascinated
me for a long time. Allow me to explain. On my mom’s side of the family, our
whole family history is that of pioneers, and people crossing the plains. I
come from a long line of Mormon farmers from Idaho, all the way up to my
grandparent’s generation. These were hardworking people who were close to the
land; the exact type of people that are being discussed in the LDS Hymn “Put
your Shoulder to the Wheel.” My extended family is still extremely hard
working. My grandfather worked right up until he died of bone cancer, and my
grandmother worked into her late 60’s, and still does volunteer work in her
late 70’s. I have an aunt who runs a small organic farm in addition to teaching
high school full time. The work ethic of these people is inspiring, and it is
what I was raised on. In my family, we were expected to work hard, and to work
for honorable things. However, I did not grow up in rural Idaho, where my tight
knit, Mormon, hardworking extended family lives.
Until I was eleven, I grew up in
Southern California, in an area very different from that of my ancestors. Here,
the people worked hard too. But they did not live off the land, and they were
not always working for honorable things. They simply worked hard to survive. My
friends in elementary school went on to get pregnant, join gangs, deal drugs,
and so on. I will never forget as a thirteen year old, getting the call that my
friend Raphael from elementary school had been killed in a gang fight. He had
been shot. We were in middle school.
I have always found the dichotomy between my
upbringing in Southern California, and my Idahoan ancestry to be an interesting
mix. They do not match, or even correspond to one another. This piece is to
show that juxtaposition between these two cultures. The heavy beats are to
represent the culture of LA, and the LDS hymn is to represent the culture of
Idaho. The purpose of this piece is to show that both of these groups of people
are working incredibly hard, just toward entirely different things. For this
assignment, I was inspired by the pictures that we viewed for class, where
Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Queen of England were black and Indian. I enjoyed
that these pieces questioned our perceptions of famous people, and much race
plays a part how we view them. I was also inspired by the media that I had been
exposed to as a child growing up in Northern LA, and the media that I had been
exposed to while with my extended family in Idaho. Each of these influences
played a large role in the choices that were made for this project.
No comments:
Post a Comment