Source 1:
Miranda, Carolina A. “Casta Paintings Were Weird Racial Documents That Broke Stereotypes.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 1 Apr. 2015. Web. 13 Nov. 2016. This article was written in Los Angeles in 2015, following the discovery of one of Miguel Cabrera’s Casta paintings within a bay area home. As such, the article was somewhat focused on the local effect of this finding; it became a new addition of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Though the positive weight of this addition was discussed, the purpose of the article moreover was to give a brief explanation of what Casta paintings were, as well as to highlight differences in culture surrounding race between Latin America and the United States. There was clear value in this article as a source as there was a primary document (the painting “From Spaniard and Morisca, Albino”,) which could be even further analyzed in it’s relevance to the Casta movement as a whole. With that, there is valuable, though opinionated, insight in this article surrounding ways in which Casta paintings were used as a mechanism to acclimate Spain to the idea of the mixed races in the New World. That being said, there are quite a few limitations in this source; there is a lack of depth concerning the negative aspects of Casta paintings, the individual influence of Miguel Cabrera’s paintings is not discussed, and the article as a whole lacks thorough reflection. Overall, this source should be used as a base starting point (but not much more than that,) and the primary document within the article should be utilized.
WC: 240
Source 2:
Banks, Taunya Lovell Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 2 (Spring 2006), pp. 208-212
This article within the Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal is titled “Mestizaje and the Mexican Mestizo Self: No Say Sangre Negra, So There is No Blackness Here”. Thus, the origin of this source is Southern California, where the Latinx population is high, and it is a Law Journal so the article had to be peer reviewed, making the content within highly reliable. The purpose of this article is to principally discuss and attempt to explain race relations and the culture of racial division and discrimination within Mexico, by means of looking at historical artifacts such as the Casta paintings that are examined. The thorough discussion of the private versus public nature of the Casta paintings, along with the social schema that was brought to the Americas via spain, carries distinct insight and new information to the topic. This article also gives a comprehensive look into the gendered aspects of the paintings which should not be overlooked when researching Casta paintings, and the deliberation on Mulatta women versus Indian women is imperative to our research. This article mainly discusses Casta paintings in Mexico, which is a limitation, however much of the information on the paintings can be generally applied to the entirety of Latin American Casta paintings. This is a source that will be very helpful and applicable to our research project, especially in the discussion of race relations and gender.
WC: 230
