Abject vessels: Laura Aguilar’s renegotiations of Chicana identity

Between two flags- an American and a Mexican one- a bare-chested woman is held captive: her body is bound by a thick cargo rope, snaking around the neck like a noose; her clenched fists tethered, pendulous breasts bulging over. Her head is hooded by a Mexican flag, whose key motif- an eagle devouring a serpent atop some prickly nopal- covers her face. Below the waist, she is wrapped in an American flag, half stripes, half stars. Born from the interstice between ostensible thesis and antithesis- between the U.S. and Mexico, subordination and desire, oppression and resistance- this is the mise-en-scene of Three Eagles Flying (1990), a photographic self-portrait by the late Chicana artist Laura Aguilar.