• Home
    • Get the Podcasts
    • About
      • Contact Latinopia.com
      • Copyright Credits
      • Production Credits
      • Research Credits
      • Terms of Use
      • Teachers Guides
  • Art
    • LATINOPIA ART
    • INTERVIEWS
  • Film/TV
    • LATINOPIA CINEMA
    • LATINOPIA SHOWCASE
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Food
    • LATINOPIA FOOD
    • COOKING
    • RESTAURANTS
  • History
    • LATINOPIA EVENT
    • LATINOPIA HERO
    • TIMELINES
    • BIOGRAPHY
    • EVENT PROFILE
    • MOMENT IN TIME
    • DOCUMENTS
    • TEACHERS GUIDES
  • Lit
    • LATINOPIA WORD
    • LATINOPIA PLÁTICA
    • LATINOPIA BOOK REVIEW
    • PIONEER AMERICAN LATINA AUTHORS
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Music
    • LATINOPIA MUSIC
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Theater
    • LATINOPIA TEATRO
    • INTERVIEWS
  • Blogs
    • Angela’s Photo of the Week
    • Arnie & Porfi
    • Bravo Road with Don Felípe
    • Burundanga Boricua
    • Chicano Music Chronicles
    • Fierce Politics by Dr. Alvaro Huerta
    • Mirándolo Bien with Eduado Díaz
    • Political Salsa y Más
    • Mis Pensamientos
    • Latinopia Guest Blogs
    • Tales of Torres
    • Word Vision Harry Gamboa Jr.
    • Julio Medina Serendipity
    • ROMO DE TEJAS
    • Sara Ines Calderon
    • Ricky Luv Video
    • Zombie Mex Diaries
    • Tia Tenopia
  • Podcasts
    • Louie Perez’s Good Morning Aztlán
    • Mark Guerrero’s ELA Music Stories
    • Mark Guerrero’s Chicano Music Chronicles
      • Yoga Talk with Julie Carmen

latinopia.com

Latino arts, history and culture

  • Home
    • Get the Podcasts
    • About
      • Contact Latinopia.com
      • Copyright Credits
      • Production Credits
      • Research Credits
      • Terms of Use
      • Teachers Guides
  • Art
    • LATINOPIA ART
    • INTERVIEWS
  • Film/TV
    • LATINOPIA CINEMA
    • LATINOPIA SHOWCASE
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Food
    • LATINOPIA FOOD
    • COOKING
    • RESTAURANTS
  • History
    • LATINOPIA EVENT
    • LATINOPIA HERO
    • TIMELINES
    • BIOGRAPHY
    • EVENT PROFILE
    • MOMENT IN TIME
    • DOCUMENTS
    • TEACHERS GUIDES
  • Lit
    • LATINOPIA WORD
    • LATINOPIA PLÁTICA
    • LATINOPIA BOOK REVIEW
    • PIONEER AMERICAN LATINA AUTHORS
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Music
    • LATINOPIA MUSIC
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Theater
    • LATINOPIA TEATRO
    • INTERVIEWS
  • Blogs
    • Angela’s Photo of the Week
    • Arnie & Porfi
    • Bravo Road with Don Felípe
    • Burundanga Boricua
    • Chicano Music Chronicles
    • Fierce Politics by Dr. Alvaro Huerta
    • Mirándolo Bien with Eduado Díaz
    • Political Salsa y Más
    • Mis Pensamientos
    • Latinopia Guest Blogs
    • Tales of Torres
    • Word Vision Harry Gamboa Jr.
    • Julio Medina Serendipity
    • ROMO DE TEJAS
    • Sara Ines Calderon
    • Ricky Luv Video
    • Zombie Mex Diaries
    • Tia Tenopia
  • Podcasts
    • Louie Perez’s Good Morning Aztlán
    • Mark Guerrero’s ELA Music Stories
    • Mark Guerrero’s Chicano Music Chronicles
      • Yoga Talk with Julie Carmen
You are here: Home / Blogs / MIRÁNDOLO BIEN with EDUARDO DÍAZ 5.24.15 “THE STRANGEST FRUIT”

MIRÁNDOLO BIEN with EDUARDO DÍAZ 5.24.15 “THE STRANGEST FRUIT”

May 23, 2015 by Breht Burri

“Texas trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood on the root,
Brown bodies swingin’ in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hangin’ from the pecan trees.”

Adaptation of “Strange Fruit” (first stanza)

“Strange Fruit” is a 1937 poem set to music by teacher and songwriter Abel Meeropol, written in protest against the lynching of African Americans in the South. Two years later, its haunting melody was made famous by jazz legend, Billie Holiday. In the original poem’s first stanza, the Texas trees are Southern, Brown bodies are Black, and pecan trees are poplar. This “Texafied” text accompanies the exhibition by San Antonio artist Vincent Valdez, entitled The Strangest Fruit, currently on view at Washington and Lee University’s Staniar Gallery through May 29.

The Strangest Fruit is composed of nine stunning life-size paintings of Tejanos hanging against dramatic white canvasses. Valdez posed his friends and brother to safely simulate body contortions in hanging positions, some of which mirror vintage photos of actual lynchings. Valdez notes that the series is inspired by the lost—and often erased—history of lynched Mexicans and Mexican Americans in this country from the late 1800s into the 1930s. Not surprisingly, the actual number of lynched Mexicans is difficult to find. Conservative documentation reveals at least 547 victims of this vicious form of racialized, ritualized murder. Direct economic competition and racial prejudice, set in Wild West lawlessness, produced the convenient and volatile mix necessary to justify this dispassionate malice. This historical erasure is succinctly contextualized in a must-read New York Times article, “When Americans Lynched Mexicans,” by William D. Carrigan and Clive Webb.

In Valdez’s work, the lynched victims appear in quotidian dress (e.g., work clothes, basketball jersey, Stetson hat, tattoos, etc.), providing a compelling metaphor for the oppression faced by many working-class Latinos in the United States today. This collapse of the distinction between past and present is incisively fleshed out in “The Noose, the Hoodie and the State,” an essay by civil rights attorney Juan Cartagena, which appears in the thoughtful bilingual exhibition catalogue produced by Washington and Lee. Cartagena begins his interrogation, “In what ways is the state operating to literally and figuratively exterminate the potential of young Latinos today?” Today, as in the past, Latinos face volatile challenges. In addition to economic competition and racial prejudice, challenges now include the blunt and nuanced impacts of the perpetual war on drugs, contemporized racial profiling, the criminalization of both Latino immigrants and Latino youth, and the United States’ ranking as the world’s top jailer. According to Cartagena, “Imprisonment is a social tool here and the punishment industry is an economic force (an $80-billion annual fixture) fed and nurtured by a country that governs through crime.” Readers should not be shy in contacting Staniar Gallery Director Clover Archer Lyle for a copy of the catalogue. It is well worth the effort.

Lynching-Report-CoverFU_200

A book about lynching in America.

Over the years, I have seen multiple exhibitions depicting the lynching of African Americans. It is always a gut-wrenching experience to come to terms with the legacy of over 4,000 brutally lost Black innocents. In telling this painful story, history curators have many resources from which to draw, prominent among them “Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror,” a report issued by the Equal Justice Initiative, Montgomery, Alabama. As for curators examining the legacy of Mexican lynchings, the archive is less definite, making Valdez’s exhibition and catalogue all the more useful and timely.

Billie-Holiday-Strange-Fruit_200

Billie Hliday’s rendering made the song reach Americans.

As a viewer of art refracting history, sometimes your mind and gut lead you away from the art itself. Such is not the case with Valdez’s work. He is a masterful painter, immensely thoughtful and craftsman-like. On The Strangest Fruit, Cartagena adds that, “Each suspended Latino body metaphorically represents hundreds of thousands of lives lost, of the potential of Latino youth, and of lost productivity to the country. Valdez cements this imagery in the mind of the viewer…” Through his vivid paintings and artistic statement, Valdez guides us fluidly from the present to the past and back again, creating an awareness of a forgotten, violent pox on this country’s history.

Abel Meeropol concludes his eerie poem:

“Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rains to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.”

_______________________________

Copyrighted by Eduardo Díaz. Thumbnail photos used under the “Fair Use” proviso of the copyright law.

 

Filed Under: Blogs, Mirándolo Bien with Eduado Díaz Tagged With: Chicano artists, Eduardo Díaz, lynching in America, The Strangest Fruit, Vincetn Valdez

RICARDO ROMO’S TEJANO REPORT 05.01.25 TONY ORTEGA’S ARTISTIC JOURNEY

May 1, 2025 By wpengine

Denver Latino Artist Tony Ortega’s Artistic Journey Tony Ortega, an eminent Denver artist, has been painting for over forty years and teaching art for two decades. His creative work has been in hundreds of exhibits and permanently collected by prominent museums including the Denver Art Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the University […]

BURUNDANGA BORICUA DEL ZOCOTROCO 04.26.25

April 26, 2025 By wpengine

La Jungla de Pamela y Josué En la altura de la Cordillera Central de Puerto Rico por las crestas de Orocovis, en el barrio Pellejas Está la finca la Jungla que regentan Pamela y Josue.   Una pareja de agricultores empecinados en la más difícil de las tareas: hacer producir cinco cuerdas del terreno más […]

POLITICAL SALSA Y MÁS with SALOMON BALDENEGRO 04.17.25 FAKE VS. TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS

April 17, 2025 By wpengine

Fake vs. true righteousness… Let us preach righteousness, and practice it.  Brigham Young, American religious leader and politician. Last month, in this space, I commented on the hypocrisy of Donald Trump and his cultists and apologists, including, to its everlasting shame, the Republican Party. Trump says he plans to establish a White House Faith Office, […]

RICARDO ROMO’S TEJANO REPORT 04.26.25

April 26, 2025 By wpengine

Latino Art Enhances the Beauty of Botanical Gardens. With the arrival of Spring, Latinos are drawn to parks as well as botanical spaces that include art. A recent visit to San Antonio Botanical Gardens demonstrated to me that art can make these visits a more engaging experience. The Botanical Garden is a stunning gem of […]

More Posts from this Category

New On Latinopia

LATINOPIA ART SONIA ROMERO 2

By Tia Tenopia on October 20, 2013

Sonia Romero is a graphic artist,muralist and print maker. In this second profile on Sonia and her work, Latinopia explores Sonia’s public murals, in particular the “Urban Oasis” mural at the MacArthur Park Metro Station in Los Angeles, California.

Category: Art, LATINOPIA ART

LATINOPIA WORD JOSÉ MONTOYA “PACHUCO PORTFOLIO”

By Tia Tenopia on June 12, 2011

José Montoya is a renowned poet, artist and activist who has been in the forefront of the Chicano art movement. One of his most celebrated poems is titled “Pachuco Portfolio” which pays homage to the iconic and enduring character of El Pachuco, the 1940s  Mexican American youth who dressed in the stylish Zoot Suit.

Category: LATINOPIA WORD, Literature

LATINOPIA WORD XOCHITL JULISA BERMEJO “OUR LADY OF THE WATER GALLONS”

By Tia Tenopia on May 26, 2013

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is a poet and teacher from Asuza, California. She volunteered with No More Deaths, a humanitarian organization providing water bottles in the Arizona desert where immigrants crossing from Mexico often die of exposure. She read her poem, “Our Lady of the Water Gallons” at a Mental Cocido (Mental Stew) gathering of Latino authors […]

Category: LATINOPIA WORD, Literature

© 2025 latinopia.com · Pin It - Genesis - WordPress · Admin