Paño Art
Beyond the Success Story: An Exploration of the Community, Care, and Testimonios of Incarcerated Chicano Men
Artist: Joe Calderon, 2013. From the Leplat-Torti Collection.
Introduction
In attempts to humanize those who have made the often dangerous journey across the United States-Mexico border, shared stories found both in the media and the public focus solely on those who can be considered “successes”, who are examples of the American Dream. Through this, an idolization of the perfect immigrant is born: one who is an upstanding member of the community, who has or is in the process of raising a family, who has never harmed anyone, who has never broken the law. Under the pressure of the structures of racism and colonization present in the United States, the need for these success stories is deeply relevant. Alongside these stories are often somber recollections and stories of those who died during the struggle of crossing the border, remembered for their qualities that would have contributed to their success in the United States. However, between these two extremes lies a wealth of unspoken stories, lost and made invaluable by the dominant discourse that seeks to shame immigrants for their difficulties, claim bodies in servitude to the state, intentionally isolate people from their communities, and many more deeply harmful processes. A particular example is that of incarceration, which has deeply affected the Chicano people living in the borderlands of the United States-Mexico crossing. Despite the wealth of harms that already exist in the borderlands, incarceration seeks to incite more violence, trapping bodies and silencing voices. However, through the sharing of intensely personal and powerful art, Chicano men throughout history have pushed back against the harms of incarceration. This project aims to examine the processes of expression that these unspoken stories take in a world that does not claim them, the way that constrained stories and testimonios change form, and the persistence of community under great duress. In utilizing art in the creation and caretaking of their community both behind bars and beyond them, showing that despite the efforts of the dominant structures that seek to silence them, their voices persist, however muffled.
The History and Context of Paño Art
Paño art experienced a major expansion in the 1940’s, particularly situated in prisons in Texas, being made primarily by Chicano men (Henry and Leplat-Torti 2020, 3). Traditional Paño art is ballpoint pen on a handkerchief, generally in black and white, though sometimes colored by whatever artists had access to at the time, whether that be wax, coffee, or the occasional colored pencil (Henry and Leplat-Torti 2020, 3). However, as the art form became more common, more prisons sought to prevent easy access to materials, such as the handkerchiefs that became canvases in the hands of artists. This did not stop artists. Tearing up bed sheets, pillowcases, and more allowed artists to continue creating (Justice Arts Coalition and Leplat-Torti 2013). Despite the risk of potentially severe punishments, paño art persisted as an act of great resistance.
Isolated from their communities, resources, and systems of support and care, Chicano men, many of whom lacked education and were illiterate, had to find new ways to express themselves and maintain a link to the outside world (Durand and Leplat-Torti 2020, 2). Paño art became a vital way for incarcerated Chicano men to maintain their humanity under the violent structures of imprisonment that surrounded them both while they were in prison and beyond its bars. Through their art, they claimed their voices against a system that seeks to render them silent and worthless. In the creation of their art, they find a way to express their thoughts, feelings, experiences, hopes, and dreams whether simple or complex. They create links back to their communities by making art for their loved ones as keepsakes, many detailing the memories and love they shared (Henry and Leplat-Torti 2020, 5). Prisons seek to dominate those who are incarcerated through removing their identities and focusing on the violences they commit. Paño art rejects this domination, focusing on love, spirituality, and popular culture. Many pieces feature images hailing from Catholicism, Aztec or Mixtec cultures, Mexican history and spirituality, as well as children’s icons such as Mickey Mouse (Henry and Leplat-Torti 2020, 5). Paños were given to the parents, wives, children, friends, and more of the Chicano artists who made them (Henry and Leplat-Torti 2020, 5). In fact, many artists, such as Manuel Moya and Jerry Tapia, who are featured in the documentary Paño Arte: Images from Inside, specifically avoid depictions of violence in their art beyond symbols that reflected the violent prison system they survived in every day, wanting to be known as someone more than the violent acts they have committed in the past (Paño Arte: Images from Inside 1996).
Paños are relatively rare in the art world. Because of the nature of this art as a private and personal experience that often serve as gifts to family members to keep at home, collections are few and far between (Henry and Leplat-Torti 2020, 5). In my search for this topic, actual images of the art were somewhat available, though many artists were unknown. The only direct source I could find involving artists themselves was a documentary published by the Public Broadcasting Service that I could not find online anywhere, even in the online archives of PBS. Some excerpts were preserved on YouTube, becoming the only direct testimonio I could acquire. In the full scope of available resources, there was only one source/collection with accompanying written histories and analyses of paño. This collection was gathered by a man located in France, widely disconnected from Chicano culture both in physical space and contextual space. I mention this because of the remarkable, and importantly, artificial, bias in this preservation. These pieces of art are extensions of the artists themselves, and are now incredibly distant from where they were developed, no longer belonging to the artists who made them. The distance is not accidental. To find a place in the art world, paño art could not stay within its Chicano context, as the dominant discourse of the United States’ perspective on incarceration renders value non-existent.
Paño Art as Visual Testimonio and Papelitos Guardados
Endeavoring to be known beyond the violent systems that seek to define Chicano men as nothing more than worthless, voiceless, and trapped bodies shows incredible strength and resilience, offering up art that shows the power in reclaiming one’s own story. In this act of resistance arises the idea of testimonio. A testimonio is a powerful way to critically describe one’s own life and experience in relation to the systems of power that marginalize and oppress minorities, incorporating political, social, and cultural histories as a way to enact change and resistance (Delgado Bernal et al. 2012, 364). Testimonio can serve as a method of recovering experience and truths that dominant discourse seeks to silence, giving value back to a previously untold story and validating many others who can share in that experience (Delgado Bernal et al. 2012, 364-365). In considering those definitions, paño art serves as testimonio for the individual artists as well as all those who commissioned or received the art, and both method and product, a creation of history and a product of defiance and becoming.
Paul Sedillo, an artist also featured in Paño Arte: Images from Inside, tells his story within the documentary. In the compounded oppressions he faced, from poverty, poor representation, lack of accessible and quality education, and generational traumas that saw the men he looked up to most in prison, such as his father, Sedillo utilizes his art to tell his experiences as only a single testimonio in an entire collective (Paño Arte: Images from Inside 1996). In testimonio, a single story can make powerful connections and strides toward community creation. In each shared paño, passed between cell bars and mailed home to family, artists found and developed their community beneath the systems built to isolate them.
In this hiding and passing of paños between artists and in the complexity of the very private nature of the art form, artists protected one another and their papelitos guardados. Papelitos guardados may have many meanings, but it can be roughly translated into hidden papers, protected papers, or secret, protected roles (Latina Feminist Group 2001, 1). Papelitos guardados as a concept can refer to deeply personal, private, but intense times of testimonio, and the following process where the individual and personal becomes political and shared (Latina Feminist Group 2001, 1;13). Paño art is by design a remarkably individual experience, and is, by design, an equally shared experience among members of the community who serve roles as protectors of each other and their art beyond their forced roles as incarcerated people. In bridging the divide between private and shared, paño art becomes an impossibly powerful tool for connection between incarcerated Chicano men, a platform from which a community can dream of a very different future together.
Artist: Justin Sturtevant, 2012. From the Leplat-Torti Collection.
However, paño art is not perfect. In its communal nature and co-option of symbols as a form of testimonio, it pulls from a variety of cultural and social histories, leaving out details of internal oppressions created by disparities in co-option (Latina Feminist Group 2001, 13). The majority of paño artists were Chicano, and much of the art reflected that, with common symbols of lowriders, barrio and graffiti art, and others that reflect an identity tied to the borderlands being very common (Henry and Leplat-Torti 2020, 3). However, symbols of Christianity were also regularly evoked, such as Jesus and the Virgin Mary and the distinct but associated Virgin of Guadalupe, reflecting the history of violent colonization experienced in the Americas (Henry and Leplat-Torti 2020, 3-4). Furthermore, paño art appropriates symbols from Aztec cultures, though artists may only have a distant, disparate connection to “Aztec grandmothers”, reinforcing harms of colonization that strips Indigenous communities of symbols that are very sacred to them (Ybarra 2019). Despite the constrained, oppressed, and marginalized experience incarcerated Chicano men face, they are still capable of significant harms.
Cultural norms of machismo find themselves deeply and intricately woven into the artistry of paño making, where women are depicted in overly sexualized and objectified ways. Chicana/x feminists scholars have intensely criticized the misogyny present in Chicano culture, at great risk to themselves and their connection to their community (Flores 1996, 144). In some paño art, Chicano men assert power rooted in dominant sexist beliefs for their own enjoyment, objectifying their community and isolating women into a narrow identity. These intra-community separations and definitions inflict layers of harm onto others facing structural vulnerabilities in their own lives (Flores 1996, 146). Paño art often depicts breasts, women in lingerie, sexual acts, women in an otherwise exaggerated sexual style, and more, thought it is very taboo to depict one’s own girlfriend or wife in these ways, preferring a more respectful depiction and focus on love intimately (Henry and Leplat-Torti 2020, 5). This distinction is significant, displaying a male-gaze dominated view of women, where women claimed by a particular man are sacred, while other women are seen purely as objects to be sexualized. Despite these issues, paño art is still incredibly impactful in recording an individual’s history, thoughts, and feelings, and provides a window through which to view the resilience of incarcerated Chicano men.
Artist: Unknown. From the Leplat-Torti Collection.
The Roots of Incarceration and School-to-Prison Pipelines
The complexity of these compounded harms is thoroughly present in the symbols and culture surrounding paño art. Central themes of paño art often follow unique experiences of time. For artist Paul Sedillo, he describes in his art the feeling of the world and his community beyond the bars moving on, people getting married, beginning families, achieving dreams, and more, while he stays the same, rooted in place (Paño Arte: Images from Inside 1996). In Sedillo’s life, the process of incarceration began remarkably young. The men he looked up to across generations of his community were in and out of prison, and as a child, he wanted to emulate them. He was also unable to attend high school, and was first sentenced to prison at 18 years old (Paño Arte: Images from Inside 1996). His story serves as an unfortunately common testimonio, as Chicano boys are one of the most likely demographics to drop out of school and enter the juvenile detention system (Valles 2017, 42). Zero tolerance policies that lead to citations and removal from schools sometimes necessitate court hearings by policy, facilitating unfair fines that often poverty-stricken Chicano boys’ families can not afford to pay, resulting in early incarceration (Valles 2017, 43-44). School discipline tends to be enforced on non-white students significantly more than white students, and consequences are often much more severe for their Chicano peers, resulting in expulsion for even nonviolent infractions (Valles 2017, 44;49). Male Chicano students are particularly seen as dangerous as compared to their female peers (Valles 2017, 50).
The barriers to success are severe for Chicano men growing up along the borderlands under dominant systems that label them violent criminals whether they have enacted harm on another or not. Success stories become rarer, not because these men are less deserving, more violent, or morally wrong, but because the systems of oppression they resist are efficient and designed to leave no one unscathed. Generations of harm have been enacted upon Chicano men, historically, socially, and politically.
Artist: Unknown. From the Leplat-Torti Collection.
Community and Carework
Community carework therefore becomes so much more necessary and impactful, and fuels the remarkable acts of resistance that Chicano men embody in their paños. Art aids them in their connection with each other while they are incarcerated, as well as their larger community beyond the prison walls. In a study on the reinclusion of incarcerated individuals to broader society, a sense of shared responsibility on the account of the correctional system, the community, and the government to provide proper support is needed for individuals to survive upon release (Fortune and Arai 2014, 81). This is exceptionally important for the experiences of Chicano men. Their support cannot come from their community alone, the labor is enormous. Instead, the structures that isolate and oppress Chicano men must be changed for conditions to be improved. Stigma associated with prison sentences excludes those who have been incarcerated in the past, reducing them down to a singular, voiceless monolith and preventing the development of new and more complex identities as someone who has overcome the prison system that seeks to maintain its violent power (Fortune and Arai 2014, 83). The school system has also been used to maintain violent power through forced assimilation throughout history. Aggressions experienced in school, large or small, compound on external harms Chicanos face outside of school and contribute to educational inequities and cruel treatment (Delgado Bernal 2012, 364-365). The institution of school, much like a prison, tolerates nothing and punishes harshly through constraining the body in a location.
Artist: Unknown. From the Leplat-Torti Collection.
In stark opposition to those structures are the remarkable grounds upon which community is built. Beyond the bars, locations and experiences that fight isolation, cultivate joy, and contribute to physical and emotional resource support for communities most marginalized by oppressive structures give life to hopes and dreams, reducing structural and intra-community violences. This could be as simple as a community garden that fosters food security and community care for one another (Herrera 2022, 2).
Artist: Unknown. From Ed Jordan's Collection in Austin, Texas.
In providing the labor to feed oneself and others in one’s community, those who were incarcerated can reclaim their power and agency to heal from the structures of violence that have become familiar to them (Sbicca 2016). Community gardens allow them to provide access to restorative justice for themselves and their community, reducing the harms of poverty and offering post-incarceration people an inexpensive physical location of safety and connection (Sbicca 2016). When given the space to heal, people can reflect on their own actions and the systems that assailed them, and find new ways of transforming oneself, community, and the criminal justice system beyond the retributive and cruel processes that are actively in place now (Sbicca 2016). In spaces of positive labor and intentional transformation, a kind of justice focused on restoring connection can be developed (Sbicca 2016).
Artist: Unknown. From the Leplat-Torti Collection.
While the labor of individuals builds community spaces like a garden, these spaces must exist upon reentry for incarcerated individuals. Those who are already settled in a community are capable of providing invaluable support for others that may be dis-integrated by structures of power (Herrera 2022, 17). These structures of power encompass places as wide as the United States-Mexico border and places as confined as a prison cell. Reentry is made so much more difficult by the vulnerabilities that contribute to incarceration in the first place, inciting a cyclical violence that sends previously incarcerated individuals back to incarceration (Sbicca 2016; Paño Arte: Images from Inside 1996). In disrupting the shared structural vulnerabilities that prevent the cultural sharing of knowledge, strong communities disrupt violences and silences where they begin, at the individual level (Herrera 2022, 30).
Artist: Unknown. From the Leplat-Torti Collection.
Caregiving is not restricted to the community beyond incarceration supporting those who have experienced incarceration. Those suffering the violence care for one another in their art, sharing paños and protecting the art from being confiscated, doing commissions for others to connect with their own stories, feelings, and family members beyond the spoken or written word, and more (Henry and Leplat-Torti 2020, 7). In these small acts of exchange, Chicano men built their hopes, dreams, and stories not only as individuals, but with one another, ensuring the wellbeing and survival of their friends and families suffering under incarceration. To consider these men as invaluable, as the dominant discourse seeks to, is to disregard incredible acts of labor and care both given and received despite their constraints.
Artist: Unknown. From the Leplat-Torti Collection.
Conclusion
Community and connection are irreplaceably valuable to Chicano men, who are vulnerable to many different structures of powers that seek to oppress, marginalize, and render them invaluable and voiceless and in the experiences of their own lives. However, Chicano men need no structures of power to claim them as valuable, their community already knows they are. Despite the barriers to success they face in attempting to create their lives, such as poverty, intolerant and divisive school systems, exploitative prison systems, and more, Chicano men claim their voices. In the case of prisons, constrained and muffled, but resistant nonetheless, they claim their value, voices, and powerful testimonio as a part of their cultural history, creating remarkable art that celebrates that history in the form of paños. In these paños, history is built of both successes and defeats, as well as hopes and dreams yet to come. While fighting stereotypes by presenting an oppositional truth may be a very useful tool, a deeper, more nuanced view of the range of experiences, pains, and joys of the communities that surround us provides a greater understanding between us, and hopefully, greater empathy.
Artist: Cannon Ball, 1934. From the Leplat-Torti Collection.
Thank You
To the many artists throughout history that can no longer be credited to their art, to their still living stories, thank you. To all those continuing these stories today through their art, thank you. These stories matter, whether we know their endings or not, whether society has deemed them a success or a failure. They are echoes and expressions of moments and lives we all share, despite all time and distance. They are worthy of being shared, appreciated, and felt.
To all those who read, view, and listen to these stories, a very special thank you for engaging with the acts of resistance found in paño art and testimonio.
Reference List
Delgado Bernal, Dolores, Rebeca Burciaga, and Judith Flores Carmona. (2012). Chicana/Latina Testimonios: Mapping the Methodological, Pedagogical, and Political. Equity & Excellence in Education, 45:3, 363-372. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2012.698149
Durand, Isabelle and Reno Leplat-Torti. (2020). Press Release. Reno Leplat-Torti’s Collection. https://mega.nz/file/Ahki1RJK#gxh93XZrKrLBNyPvM74rdm4xt5IyXUhQCPzRb2w0kT0
Flores, Lisa A. (1996). Creating Discursive Space Through a Rhetoric of Difference: Chicana Feminists Craft a Homeland. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 82, 142-156.
Fortune, Darla, and Susan M. Arai. (2014). Rethinking Community Within the Context of Social Inclusion as Social Justice: Implications for Women After Federal Incarceration. Studies in Social Justice, 8:1, 79-107. https://journals.library.brocku.ca/index.php/SSJ/article/view/1040/1010
Henry, Martha V. and Reno Leplat-Torti. (2020). Art from the Inside: Paño Drawings by Chicano Prisoners. Reno Leplat-Torti’s Collection. https://mega.nz/file/Ahki1RJK#gxh93XZrKrLBNyPvM74rdm4xt5IyXUhQCPzRb2w0kT0
Herrera, Timothy Michael. (2022). COVID, Climate Change, and Carework: Mesoamerican Diasporic Indigenous and Latino Communities in the Willamette Valley. University of Oregon. Accessed via Canvas.
Justice Arts Coalition and Reno Leplat-Torti. (2013). Paños Created in US Prisons Spark the Passion of Exhibitor in France. An interview with Leplat-Torti by Justice Arts Coalition. https://thejusticeartscoalition.org/2013/06/13/panos-created-in-us-prisons-spark-the-passion-of-exhibitor-in-france/
Latina Feminist Group. (2001). Introduction. Papelitos Guardados: Theorizing Latinidades Through Testimonio. Duke University Press. Accessed via Canvas.
Paño Arte: Images from Inside. (1996). Features artists Paul Sedillo, Manuel Moya, and Jerry Tapia. Public Broadcasting Service. Excerpts found on YouTube, unable to find the original source. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2UU_nWeTjY
Sbicca, Joshua. (2016). These Bars Can't Hold Us Back: Plowing Incarcerated Geographies with Restorative Food Justice. Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, 48:5, 1359-1379. https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.uoregon.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10.1111/anti.12247
Valles, Brenda G. (2017). The School to Prison Pipeline: The Role of Culture and Discipline in School; Chapter 3 - Resisting the School-to-Prison Pipeline Utilizing Guidance from the Frontlines: Chicano Student Experiences as a Source of Knowledge and Strength . Emerald Publishing Limited. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uoregon/reader.action?docID=4769098&ppg=53&pq-origsite=primo
Ybarra, Megan. (2019). On Becoming a Latinx Geographies Killjoy. Society + Space; Latinx Geographies Forum. https://www.societyandspace.org/articles/on-becoming-a-latinx-geographies-killjoy
