Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary
For reasons I’m not totally clear on, my university’s alumni magazine decided to do a feature on my work on the intersections of race and religion in American politics. And for said picture, the editor suggested my portrait be taken in a warehouse full of ballot machines. I suggested otherwise, given that my work really is not about polling data and any particular voting year and so forth. It’s much more about history and culture as they connect to longer-term political and social movement trends. I suggested that meeting in a local historical church would be a better idea.
We ended up, then, in Our Lady of Guadalupe church, a long-established Chicano parish with a strong grassroots congregation on the west side of town. It was maybe a week before Christmas, and for whatever Catholic reason that I should probably know, the church was filled with flowers obviously brought by parishoners. I mean filled. The photographer decided that this one particular alcove had the best light, and so shot me right next to Mary (or possibly the Virgin de Guadalupe; I confess to not being sure). Note the brown-skinned saints and angels in the stained-glass behind us.
When this photo showed up in my email yesterday, I about fell over laughing. I love everything about it: my ridiculously cocky posture, the saints over my shoulder, the bouquet of faded roses, and most of all the fact that la virgin appears to be wiping her hands clean of me. She’s just DONE with my antics. We have nothing left to say to each other.
Perfect.
