Recovering Mestiza Genealogies in Contemporary New Mexican Art: Delilah Montoya’s El Sagrado Corazón (1993)

• Published in: Frontiers (Boulder) 2016, Vol.37 (1), p.118-150
• Main Author: Lewthwaite, Stephanie
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 18th century; Colonialism; Cultural heritage; Gender; Genealogy; History; Memory; Narratives; Native North Americans; Oppression; Patriarchy; Political power; Race relations; Society; Spanish language; Traditions; Women
• ISSN: 0160-9009; 1536-0334; 1536-0334
• DOI: 10.1353/fro.2016.a618386

In her El Sagrado Corazon (Sacred Heart) series from the early 1990s, photographer Delilah Montoya replays the colonial history of New Mexico in order to reveal the mixed Indo-Hispano heritage of her mother's birthplace. In a vital portrait from the series, Montoya addresses the neglected role that Genizaros or captive Native peoples played in shaping Spanish- speaking Hispano culture and society in New Mexico. From the sixteenth century onward, colonial rule in New Mexico shaped the creation of distinct hierarchies of race, class, and gender, which became tied to systems of caste, servitude, and patriarchy. Vestiges of colonial power and myth making continue to determine the status of New Mexico's Hispano population today. In deconstructing colonial narratives, Montoya's series also reworks modes of visual representation that have long supported colonial power relations, including colonial casta painting, ethnographic portraiture, and narrative and documentary photography. Montoya transforms these modes of visual representation from tools of colonization into a foundation for critique and activism in the present.