Untitled (The Bride)

In this print Dolores Guerrero-Cruz, who grew up in East L.A., combines her advocacy for the rights of women with her support of the Chicano Movement. Here the bride wears a skull mask while holding a cactus bouquet. The work is, in her words, “a statement about my struggle as an artist, who leaves the professional field of art in order to survive as a single parent. During this time, this woman feels like she is slowly dying because she is not able to be what she wants to be before she can be anything else. This is not against marriage, but a statement that [she] must be what she really wants to be before she can be anything else. Women have a harder struggle than men simply because we are women; I hope that for the women of tomorrow the struggle will be easier to make their lives better."