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National Conversation on Race: Mexican Americans and the Inherited Casta System
September 27, 2024, 6:00 pm
National Museum of Mexican Art
Join artist Delilah Montoya and professors Julie Dowling and Emmanuel Ortega for an enlightening discussion related to her ethnographic photography project on race and human classifications inherited from 17th-century Colonial Mexico. Through the lens of science and reason, it is evident that race, like culture, is a social construct stemming from the Age of Enlightenment.
About the speakers:
- Emmanuel Ortega, PhD, the Colonial-era Casta Painting Genre
- Delilah Montoya, Contemporary Casta Portraiture: Nuestra “Calidad”
- Julie Dowling, PhD, Mexican Americans and the Question of Race
“Like the Colonial Casta paintings, the Contemporary Casta Portraiture represents household units; however, it does not define the members by means of colonial terminology. Instead, the families agree to share the results of their DNA test to demonstrate their deep and regional ancestry.” Delilah Montoya
Co-presented by the Smithsonian’s Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past Initiative, as part of their National Conversation on Race series.
Bank of America is proud to be the Founding Partner of Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past.