American Art and National Identity American Art and National Identity Fig. 13. In spite of America's bullish way with the world, people persist. They refuse to be diminished to grist for the economic mill. Character is the product of history, a hybrid of cultures, and the choices that individual people make about the lives they wish to lead.
Identity is negotiated between the present and the past.
This woman, a Seri Indian whose face is hidden from view, walks in her traditional dress as if out of the magical space of a novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This mysterious Angel and Woman bears a message of what may come to pass as the border culture between Mexico and the United States broadens across North and Central America in a historical rhythm of change that we can now only begin to intuit.