Introduction
Ester Hernandez was born in San Francisco, California and already after she graduated from the University of California, she became known for her paintings which depicted the roles of women in society. One of her first paintings was The Healer painted in 1983 which depicted a woman of Hispanic origin. This work was followed by the Dia de Los Muertos, California Special, and Full Moon. Perhaps, one of Hernandez’s most famous works is Sun Mad which is a parody of the logo of Sun Mad Raisins.
This poster portrays a skeleton of a woman “wearing a sunbonnet and holding a basket of grapes.” (Maciel. Ortiz, and Herrera-Sobek 205) The main ideas of this poster are the exploitation of farm laborers, health hazards that threaten farm workers because of the contaminated water and exposure to pesticides, as well as Latina women and their life in America.
Body
To begin with, Sun Mad was expected to show how difficult it is to work at the farms, especially for the payment the laborers get. Though the drawing portrays the skeleton of a woman, it refers to all the laborers who spend the whole day under the hot sun and cold rain trying to earn at least some money to support their families financially. They work extra hours not because they want to earn extra money, but because they have no other choice. This is one of the conditions of their work at the farm, the work which most of them are forced to do until the end of their lives.
Another idea of this poster is to show the real conditions in which farm laborers work and to warn them about health problems they are likely to have because of pesticides and contaminated water. The skeleton of a woman depicted at the poster “is a satiric portrayal of the effect of pesticides on grape workers: instant death or the onslaught of life-threatening diseases.” (Alba 85) Using this work, Hernandez tried to express her anger about the danger of working in the raisin industry; she started drawing this poster after reading how contaminated the water in the barrio where people raise grapes was: “Sun Mad evolved out of my anger and my fear of what would happen to my family, my community, and myself.” (“Biography of Ester Hernandez”)
Finally, this poster shows that the life of Latina women in America is far from being easy. All the immigrants face difficulties in foreign countries. Strange as it may seem, but finding a job in America, a country of opportunities, is the most difficult, especially if a person has no special skills. This is why most Hispanic women get jobs in the farm industry where the payment is low, but where they have to work harder than anybody else who has an education and who works in the office. Thus, the Sun Mad Raisins is about the inequality of working opportunities for Latina women in America.
Conclusion
In sum, Ester Hernandez’s poster Sun Mad Raisins has three main ideas. It shows the difficulties that women face when working at the farms, the problems with health that farmworkers have because of pesticides and contaminated water, and the life of Latina women in the country of opportunities where they have to work for low wages in poor working conditions. This work strikes the viewers with the creator’s ability to express all these issues by simply portraying a female skeleton with a basket of raisins.
Works Cited
“Biography of Ester Hernandez.” Posters. American Style. 2008. Smithsonian American Art Museum. Web.
Alba, Alicia G. Chicano Art Inside/Outside the Master’s House: Cultural Politics and the CARA Exhibition. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998.
Maciel, David, Ortiz, Isidro D., and Herrera-Sobek, MarĂa. Chicano Renaissance: Contemporary Cultural Trends. Tucson, Arizona: The University of Arizona Press, 2000.