Frida Kahlo and Identity

Andre Breton called Frida Kahlo a Surrealist. Kahlo's response to this: "...I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality" (SFMOMA 7). When does the individual become part of something--a movement, a trend, a classification? When I was in junior high, my friend had a handmade, 8 1/2 by 11 poster on her wall which read, "I want to be different, just like everybody else." Being different is dangerous; one risks being classified. Classification to me is far more frightening than exclusion, in part because it is the ultimate form of rejection: if you are this, then you can't be that. Trying to define the self as a movement, trend, or any other fleeting definition petrifies me.

I can identify at least one antecedent for this fear, but I'll save that for later.

One day, during my first year of teaching, I had a joyous realization. None of my students had an eating disorder. This was shocking. In my hometown, I knew several girls who had been hospitalized (not just to the doctor's office to be weighed every other week) because of complications from their eating disorders. My experience at a conservative Christian university in southern California was similar. One semester, I counted 8 undergrads on my half of the dorm floor who were actively entertaining eating disorders One girl was hospitalized for two weeks. To be in an environment where zero percent of the girls suffered / struggled / indulged those issues was mind-blowing. I might add that the one student who brought up her weight socially was white (one of the two white girls I had as students that year). This phenomenon fascinated me, so I started doing what I do best: analyzing. I realized that my students did indeed classify themselves, but not based on their weight or even their appearance. My students gave themselves value and identity through their race. I teach in Sacramento, California, known as the most diverse community in the United States. I have students from all over the world; I have students whose parents are from all over the world. Their experience is the polar opposite of mine. One of my best friends in high school was of Chinese dissent. Another one of my friends was half-Indian; another was black. The common thread was that they all acted white. I grew up thinking that everyone was white, just like I. It wasn't until college that I realized that, culturally speaking, assimilation is less than ideal. My students know little of assimilation. They are more involved with their family and cultural groups than their social groups at school. In fact, their family and cultural groups often dictate their social groups at school. My students don't strive for the label of "skinny," "jock," "brain," "skater," or "band geek" like my peers did. My students boast their cultural identities as "Mexican," "Hmong," "Pinoy," "Black," and "Russian." My heart breaks with each anecdote of racial profiling or social struggle that my students endure. But at the same time, I envy them.

To grow up with the confidence of who you are as an individual--to rely on that even though you are thoroughly confused about life's harrowing events and circumstances--that is what I admire in my students. That is what Frida Kahlo came back to. And she had more problems than simply being teased as a child. Frida Kahlo expressed herself, partly through how she viewed herself as an individual, and partly through her culture. When walking through a Frida Kahlo exhibit, as I did at the SFMOMA yesterday, one cannot help but wonder why she painted herself so frequently, and, at times, so violently. This, I think, was her attempt to label herself in a healthy way--to capture who she was as a way to comfort herself. Another obvious element of Frida's art is Mexico: traditional clothing, folklore, and color. It's as if it gave her security, stability; identity.

The welcoming of her self-expression came with a label which she rejected; Frida Kahlo knew who she was, and she knew that it didn't fit into a box.