When I visited the UBC Museum of Anthropology, I was overwhelmed by the amount of cultural history being displayed there. As I explored into the intriguing topic of Arts of Resistance: Politics and the Past of Latin America, I was astonished by how much stories can be told, from many different experiences, through historical art. It provides viewers with the history and politics of Mesoamerica. These folkloric arts also illustrates ideas to us viewers the social and political standpoint of traditional artworks. Traditional artworks produced by the Indigenous Latin Americans also gave historical events and background, while also serving the purpose to aid viewers and iconographers ideas of the society back in the days.

The Indigenous Latin Americans were being treated extremely poorly. Such as when the Salvadoran refugees were attempting to cross the border to flee and abandon their home, attempting to relocate to somewhere safe, due to the violence of the Salvadoran armed conflict back in their hometown. Though the refugees were unquestionably unarmed and have no intentions of violence, both the Salvadoran and Honduran military continued to experiment their new artilleries imported by the United States. Many refugees end up being held in the Honduran camps.

I was especially intrigued by the canvas that explained Centeotl, the Central Mexican maize goddess. It really made me reflect on the retaliation of the Oaxaca People when being controlled by the Asociación Popular del Pueblo de Oaxaca, or the APPO. It clearly infuriated the Oaxaca People when the police had begun shooting the teachers that were protesting peacefully against the insufficient funding for rural schools. Many of them retaliated by expressing their lack of fair treatment and absence of basic human rights through different forms of art. It gave the suppressed opportunities to express their emotions and thought process during the time of struggle. As the Museum of Anthropology has shown, the Oaxaca People specifically graffitied on colonial walls to send out a stronger, more meaningful message rather than just drawing and painting on bark paper. However, illustrating arts on bark paper are also a very popular way to depict messages among the artists.

The use of pre-Hispanic Iconography has been an effective way to represent the history and tell stories of social change throughout the Mesoamerican past. The artworks demonstrate significant creativity and setting a unique interpretation of the memories of the community. It offers viewers and iconographers information and verifications of the unjust treatment towards the Indigenous people in Latin America and how they attempted to resist the control.