In both of this week’s readings there was a occurring theme of identity; and parallel to this the complexity it. In the Catalina De Erauso reading, the behaviour that Catalina portrays while she is travelling around is a complete contrast to the type of lifestyle expected of a nun. I think this conveys how the ‘New World’ was fertile was new opportunities that were inaccessible to her as a nun. I am not condoning Catalina’s behaviour, but it is interesting how she adopts the colonial behaviour of bloodthirsty violence.

The second reading looked at how the casta paintings have become increasingly controversial, because of the racial ‘hierarchies’ that the paintings exhibit. When first looking at the paintings, it can seem almost progressional because of the intermingling of races. However, after reading the article it is clear that the paintings seem to be a sensationalisation and romanticism of racism. The article itself explained how the Casta paintings were part of the ‘European desires for exotica’. There are clear distinctive features which the paintings have for races, whether that be the facial expressions or the surroundings. For example, one of the paintings which depicts an African man who seems to be married to an indigenous woman. The man seems to have caricature facial features, which depicts the underlying racial stereotypes.

The image that I found the most interesting was one that had multiple paintings of couples below a Virgin Mary figure. This painting was interesting because the colours that surrounded Mary were very light, mainly white colours which were only transferred to the women in the paintings. I think that this reflects how these paintings subtly convey how white people, in this instance the women, are the on the same level in desirability to biblical characters.

Another thing that I picked up on, was the number of white women – 5/8 women – in the paintings compared to other ethnicities in the painting. Although this is just an interpretation, it seems that these paintings have the preliminary white man’s fear that men from other races will ‘steal’ their women and corrupt them.