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    10 reasons to feel proud this Hispanic Heritage Month

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    Approximately 1,200 people Shouted ¡Viva México! in Mexicantown, Detroit

    Approximately 1,200 people Shouted ¡Viva México! in Mexicantown, Detroit

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EL CENTRAL Hispanic News
  • Home
  • About
    • Introducing the partnership with the Race and Justice reporting Initiative
  • Español
    Approximately 1,200 people Shouted ¡Viva México! in Mexicantown, Detroit

    Approximately 1,200 people Shouted ¡Viva México! in Mexicantown, Detroit

    10 reasons to feel proud this Hispanic Heritage Month

    10 reasons to feel proud this Hispanic Heritage Month

    Chicano Fest: Celebrating History and Brown Pride

    Chicano Fest: Celebrating History and Brown Pride

    Southwest Detroit Organizations Launch ‘Building a Healthy Future’ Campaign

    Southwest Detroit Organizations Launch ‘Building a Healthy Future’ Campaign

    El Chinchorreo: Detroit’s Day Under the Caribbean Sun

    El Chinchorreo: Detroit’s Day Under the Caribbean Sun

    Muralist from Southwest Detroit Receives Prestigious Kresge Artist Fellowship

    Muralist from Southwest Detroit Receives Prestigious Kresge Artist Fellowship

    Small Businesses Remain Bullish Despite Economic and Labor Concerns

    Sixto Diaz Rodriguez, Once Called a Man of Mystery, Leaves Behind a Prolific Legacy

    Sixto Diaz Rodriguez, Once Called a Man of Mystery, Leaves Behind a Prolific Legacy

    Teens engaged in activism become better critical thinkers, U-M study finds

    Teens engaged in activism become better critical thinkers, U-M study finds

  • Community
    State’s First Historical Marker Honoring Mexican Community to be Placed in Southwest Detroit September 29

    State’s First Historical Marker Honoring Mexican Community to be Placed in Southwest Detroit September 29

    Vince Murray, Godfather of Stanton Park, Honored

    The Godfrey Hotel Detroit & I/O Rooftop Lounge Opens

    The Godfrey Hotel Detroit & I/O Rooftop Lounge Opens

    Michigan Carpenters and Millwrights Unveil Schools to Tools Mobile Field Trip Trailer at Labor Day Event

    Michigan Carpenters and Millwrights Unveil Schools to Tools Mobile Field Trip Trailer at Labor Day Event

    Southwest Detroit Organizations Launch ‘Building a Healthy Future’ Campaign

    Southwest Detroit Organizations Launch ‘Building a Healthy Future’ Campaign

    Final Steps in Gordie Howe International Bridge Tower Construction Underway

    Final Steps in Gordie Howe International Bridge Tower Construction Underway

    Engaging Detroit:  Rep. Rashida Tlaib creates Youth Civic Engagement Fellowship

    Engaging Detroit: Rep. Rashida Tlaib creates Youth Civic Engagement Fellowship

    Copa Motor City Raises Nearly $10,000 for Clark Park Coalition in 8th Annual Soccer Tournament

    Copa Motor City Raises Nearly $10,000 for Clark Park Coalition in 8th Annual Soccer Tournament

    El Chinchorreo: Detroit’s Day Under the Caribbean Sun

    El Chinchorreo: Detroit’s Day Under the Caribbean Sun

  • Featured
    10 reasons to feel proud this Hispanic Heritage Month

    10 reasons to feel proud this Hispanic Heritage Month

    Chicano Fest: Celebrating History and Brown Pride

    Chicano Fest: Celebrating History and Brown Pride

    Muralist from Southwest Detroit Receives Prestigious Kresge Artist Fellowship

    Muralist from Southwest Detroit Receives Prestigious Kresge Artist Fellowship

    Sixto Diaz Rodriguez, Once Called a Man of Mystery, Leaves Behind a Prolific Legacy

    Sixto Diaz Rodriguez, Once Called a Man of Mystery, Leaves Behind a Prolific Legacy

    Your Guide to a Career in Green Mobility in Detroit

    Your Guide to a Career in Green Mobility in Detroit

    MANA de Metro Detroit Annual Brindis Luncheon Celebrates and Supports Area Latinas

    MANA de Metro Detroit Annual Brindis Luncheon Celebrates and Supports Area Latinas

    Southwest Detroit and Mexicantown –

    Southwest Detroit and Mexicantown –

    Beautifully Revamped Roosevelt Park Unites Corktown and Mexicantown

    Beautifully Revamped Roosevelt Park Unites Corktown and Mexicantown

    Renovations Transform Clark Park into First Class Neighborhood Recreation Hub

    Renovations Transform Clark Park into First Class Neighborhood Recreation Hub

  • Culture & Arts
    Approximately 1,200 people Shouted ¡Viva México! in Mexicantown, Detroit

    Approximately 1,200 people Shouted ¡Viva México! in Mexicantown, Detroit

    Beyond Fashion: Mexican Indigenous Clothing has become a symbol of Resistance and Identity

    Beyond Fashion: Mexican Indigenous Clothing has become a symbol of Resistance and Identity

    Chicano Spirit Celebrated at Third Annual Festival

    Chicano Spirit Celebrated at Third Annual Festival

    Chicano Fest: Celebrating History and Brown Pride

    Chicano Fest: Celebrating History and Brown Pride

    Amanda Almanzar in 4 Daughters Minus 1, 2000 A.D.

    Amanda Almanzar in 4 Daughters Minus 1, 2000 A.D.

    El Chinchorreo: Detroit’s Day Under the Caribbean Sun

    El Chinchorreo: Detroit’s Day Under the Caribbean Sun

    El Chinchorreo!

    El Chinchorreo!

    NALAC Announces Open Call for the 2024 NALAC Fund for the Arts (NFA) Grant Program

    NALAC Announces Open Call for the 2024 NALAC Fund for the Arts (NFA) Grant Program

    Muralist from Southwest Detroit Receives Prestigious Kresge Artist Fellowship

    Muralist from Southwest Detroit Receives Prestigious Kresge Artist Fellowship

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‘No True Mexican’

Artist Peter Daniel Bernal Reframes Identity In New Exhibit

EL CENTRAL by EL CENTRAL
November 17, 2022
in Culture & Arts
Reading Time: 4 mins read
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  • Ofelia Saenz
  • Alejandro Ugalde
  • November 10, 2022
  • Culture & Arts

Houston-born artist and Detroit muralist Peter Daniel Bernal has always felt he was a Tejano through and through, except for one thing – he doesn’t speak Spanish. It was something that conflicted his sense of identity growing up, but has since become a token of his experience as a Chicano. 

His new art exhibit “No True Mexican,” which opens at Hatch Art Gallery on Nov. 12, attempts to push the conversation of identity forward, in the Latino community and beyond. It questions our assumptions about what it means to identify with a culture, shines a torch over the crevices of our misconceptions, and nudges the narrative of Latino identity toward our ancestral native connection. 

Bernal’s paintings are less didactic than they are exploratory, and although they’re not autobiographical, the stories they tell are best understood within the context of his own history. 

Bernal’s grandfather was a sharecropper in South Texas. His mother grew up laboring in her family’s fields and speaking only Spanish. Although she was a natural-born U.S. citizen, she suffered the same hardships and racism that Mexican immigrants suffered. Determined to protect her sons from the same fate, she chose to raise them without teaching them Spanish. 

“I kind of felt like I didn’t belong to my own community aside from my family because of my Spanish,” says Bernal as he reflects on the experience. “I want people to understand that when I can’t speak Spanish, it’s not that I don’t want to, it’s historical. And I have to stop apologizing for it.” 

In confronting the issue, he also pushes back on its irony. “I have to say, Spanish is a Colonial language, if anyone is going to give me a hard time, they should give me a hard time for not speaking Coahuiltecan or Nahuatl. It’s infuriating to me.” 

The passion that Bernal mines in exploring issues of identity and culture are often amplified in his paintings, as he beautifully restores humanity to those who suffer at the hands of racism, fear and greed. 

The paintings of the exhibit vary from smaller, concentrated and heavily detailed pieces that he mostly created during the pandemic lockdown, to larger more physically imposing ones. There’s an intensity in storytelling as much as there is in technique. He often paints, then scrapes off an area, then paints it again, repeating the process again and again until the image reveals the message. 

“It’s a slow process,” says Bernal. “But it’s deliberate.”

Artist Peter Daniel Bernal mixes “Chicano Brown” on his palette
Artist Peter Daniel Bernal mixes “Chicano Brown” on his palette
“Both Immigrant and Not: Coming Home” by Peter Daniel Bernal. The mural features the artist's mother as a young Native American girl
“Both Immigrant and Not: Coming Home” by Peter Daniel Bernal. The mural features the artist's mother as a young Native American girl
“It Happened” by Peter Daniel Bernal
“It Happened” by Peter Daniel Bernal
Artist Peter Daniel Bernal holds the paint palette he’s used for the last 15+ years
Artist Peter Daniel Bernal holds the paint palette he’s used for the last 15+ years

Although Bernal’s paintings are often inspired by real-life stories from the news or people from his life, they’re sometimes fictionalized accounts based on the impact of historical events. According to Bernal, the painting “It Happened” gives the viewer a final look into the desperate eyes of a young Aztec girl as she leaps from a ship. We don’t see the ship on the canvas – the focus is entirely on her fear and sorrow. 

Other paintings, however, are rooted in very real and heartbreaking stories. In “No More Deaths,” a woman rests on a rock, sweating and exhausted from walking through the desert to cross the border from Mexico into the U.S. The painting references actions taken against a charity group charged with leaving supplies in the desert, and the brutality of undermining efforts to help human beings survive a deadly walk. 

The “No True Mexican” exhibit is likely to spur conversation about identity and belonging from a variety of standpoints. And although Bernal points out that he speaks from his own lived experience as a Chicano, he acknowledges the universality of what it feels like to be excluded – to have one’s sense of identity questioned. He pushes back on the idea that identity is something to be ascribed by others rather than claimed by oneself.

“There’s all kinds of stereotypes of certain groups,” he says. “If you step outside of that stereotype, you’re seen as being less than that culture. I hope I can connect to people who aren’t Latino in that regard, because a lot of people feel left out of certain things.”

“No True Mexican” opens Saturday, Nov. 12 and runs through Dec. 10. For more information about the exhibit, visit hatchart.org. To learn more about the artist, visit peterdanielbernal.com.

Ofelia Saenz is a native of Southwest Detroit and a writer, marketer and food entrepreneur. She writes about entertainment, arts, culture and other human-interest stories for EL CENTRAL.

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